Responsibility was shifted from OPM to DoD’s National Background Investigation Service after breaches revealed in 2015 of OPM’s records system. Image: smolaw/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffBipartisan leaders of the House federal workforce subcommittee have asked GAO to review the status of the program for background investigations on current and prospective federal employees, saying they are “concerned that national security personnel are not undergoing all required record checks.”
Reps. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, and Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., also said they are concerned that “non sensitive personnel have not been enrolled in a continuous vetting system, and there are indications that there are challenges implementing continuous vetting across the federal government.”
They noted that responsibility was shifted from OPM to DoD’s National Background Investigation Service after breaches revealed in 2015 of OPM’s records system that exposed personal information on some 22 million current and former federal employees and others on whom background checks had been performed. “However, GAO has reported on significant delays with NBIS and the continued reliance on legacy systems almost a decade after the security breaches and added the government-wide personnel security clearance process to its High-Risk list in January 2018,” they wrote.
They noted recent reports in which GAO found that DoD “does not have a reliable schedule or cost estimate for NBIS, which is inconsistent with best practices” and that it “has also not fully planned for the cybersecurity controls needed to adequately protect NBIS and legacy systems.”
That has “cascading effects” on personnel vetting, they said, in particular the shift from periodic reinvestigations to continuous vetting of criminal, financial and other records that may raise concerns about eligibility to maintain security clearances.
They asked GAO to look into the department’s plans for managing requirements from other agencies, along with financial, timeframe and IT-related issues.
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