What is Security Clearance Portability and How Could it Help You?
Of course many employees are able to maintain their clearances while moving from one contract, position, or agency to another. Often this often involves reinvestigations, wait times, and frustrating tangles with the Scattered Castles and JPAS databases. But soon that could all change.
At a panel discussion this week hosted by the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) in partnership with the National Security Institute (NSI) of George Mason University, clearance portability, reciprocity, and clearance in person took center stage. Panel speakers INSA Chairman Tish Long, Sen. Mark Warner, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Sue Gordon, and CEO of ManTech Kevin Phillips all echoed the need for creating real reciprocity between agencies and attaching clearances to people – rather than positions.
This version of the IAA has passed out of the SSCI, but awaits discussion and a vote on the Senate floor.
Those seeking security clearance reform don’t need to wait for the IAA to pass, however – the same language is included in the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed by the president on August 13. The IAA seeks to push the portability concept even further, but it’s clear the ‘in person’ concept is one the ODNI will be forced to consider.
The issues of portability and continuous evaluation are linked because, in theory, continuous evaluation would eliminate the need for periodic reinvestigations. This would allow investigative resources to be used exclusively for new clearances, not reinvestigations. This technology, Gordon believes, will help bridge the gap between the risks that in person clearances would assume. Though currently continuous evaluation is in play, it is not yet implemented widely enough to replace reinvestigations.