Contractors Press DCSA for Continuous Vetting Metrics
Open CV alerts are delaying cleared employees from transitioning to new roles, and industry says it can't plan without data on how long resolution takes.
TL;DR
Cleared contractors are pressing the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency for metrics on its continuous vetting system, citing cases where open CV alerts have held up employees moving to new positions or programs. At a Sept. 2 NISPPAC meeting, ManTech's LaToya Coleman said the lack of data on alert resolution timelines leaves industry without insight into what to expect from the process. DCSA's Tom Giancoli said the agency is working to gather more data on the CV service, including the alert management issue resolution process, but offered no specifics on when industry would see it.
DCSA discontinued periodic reinvestigation requests at the end of June, marking a formal shift to continuous vetting as the primary clearance maintenance model under Trusted Workforce 2.0. About 948,000 industry employees are now enrolled in CV, roughly 25% of the total CV population, according to Giancoli.
The scale is enormous. Monica Marks of the Department of Energy told the NISPPAC that DoE has nearly 121,000 cleared individuals enrolled in both ODNI's continuous evaluation system and DCSA's CV service. In one quarter of the past fiscal year, the CE system flagged 502,385 alerts, and Marks said the department expects the volume to decline as the system matures.
But the alert pipeline is only as good as its resolution speed. Coleman described cases where employees needed to transition to new positions or programs but were stalled by an open CV alert. "If there is an open case, then all bets are off," she said. "The processing stops, and they are no longer considered for that role."
Giancoli acknowledged that DCSA has faced challenges contacting individuals who generate CV alerts, "trusted insiders who may not have interacted with the government for a personal vetting purpose for quite some time." He said the agency is working to share more data on the CV service, including the alert management and issue resolution process. Coleman also recommended DCSA investigators route through facility security officers rather than contacting clearance holders directly, a suggestion Giancoli said he'd take back to the agency.
Published ·Deep Fathom