OPM completes system for filing security clearance forms online

Federal workers and government contractors can now file security clearance forms electronically, the Office of Personnel Management announced Thursday.

The electronic filing system, developed by OPM as part of a three-step e-clearance project, allows employees to fill out their SF-86 and SF-86C forms on a password-protected Web site. The SF-86C form reduces the amount of paperwork-from 13 pages to two-which workers must complete to renew security clearances.

Agency personnel offices will provide employees needing security clearance with information on how to access the gateway Web site and will assign passwords, according to Norm Enger, project manager for human resources-related electronic government projects at OPM.

Employees and contractors can save their work as they fill out the form, enabling them to complete it over an extended period of time if desired. When they are finished, they simply need to certify that the form is ready and send it in for processing. The system will not accept forms that contain incomplete answers, Enger said.

Employees should feel confident that their information will remain secure once submitted, because the system has gone through extensive testing, Enger said. Project managers finalized security procedures and completed a last set of tests in the past week, according to an OPM spokesman. Originally, OPM had planned to complete the system by the end of June.

The e-clearance project is one of 24 electronic government initiatives encouraged by the president's management agenda.

"The e-clearance initiative will eliminate unnecessary and duplicative paperwork, reduce the burden on people we want to bring into the federal government, cut time involved in processing clearance while preserving the integrity of our investigations and free up personnel security resources to focus where it counts," said OPM Director Kay Coles James in a statement.

A second component of e-clearance-technology allowing agencies to create digital images of investigative files-is already finished, Enger said. Several agencies began using the imaging technology in May, he said. The new system will save time and space, allowing OPM to process an annual average of roughly 2 million new background investigations more efficiently.

OPM has also made progress on the Clearance Verification System, the third major component of e-clearance, Enger said. The system will allow agencies to access the results of background investigations or view employees' clearance forms by searching in a single database.

Until recently, most civilian agencies tracked employees' clearance histories in separate databases. OPM has transferred more than 90 percent of background check and clearance files to the new database, Enger said.

OPM has not been able to provide estimates of how much the e-clearance project will cost, but has said the initiative will save taxpayers $258 million over the next 10 years, because the streamlined security clearance system will process forms in one-tenth the time the current process takes.