New Vetting Scenarios Designed to Speed Up On-Boarding

As the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Defense Counterintelligence Agency (DCSA) continue to move forward with implementing the Trusted Workforce (TW) 2.0 initiative, there will be changes to reciprocity processes and bringing back employees who were previously cleared. When fully implemented, vetting scenarios under Transfer of Trust and Re-establishment of Trust are designed to speed up the on-boarding process for applicants who fall into these two categories.

Transfer of Trust: Previously called reciprocity, this vetting scenario applies to those who are already cleared and are moving to a position at another agency that requires the same level of clearance.

Re-establishment of Trust: This scenario applies to applicants who were previously cleared at the required level and had a break in service, which means they were no longer under Continuous Vetting. Previously if the break in service was more than 24 months a new full investigation was required. Under TW 2.0 guidelines, if the applicant has had a break in service under 36 months, then personnel security has them fill out a new security questionnaire for review and get fingerprinted. If there are no issues of concern a new investigation is not required, and they can be reinstated. If the break in service was between 36 months and 5 years, personnel security will have the applicant fill out a new security questionnaire and submit it to DCSA for them to run select investigative checks, but not a full investigation.

These vetting scenarios will be implemented once DCSA has transitioned to the new three tier investigation model (low, moderate, high). They are still working on getting NBIS set up to be able to support these changes and have projected it to be ready by FY 2027.