The National Background Investigations Bureau plans to start testing a new security clearance system for federal employees in approximately six weeks, Federal News Radio reported Thursday.NBIB Director Charles Phalen said at the Intelligence and National Security Alliance Summit held in Washington that the bureau aims to deploy the E-application system in 2018 to replace the Electronic Questionnaires for Investigations Processing platform.
“We’ve actually been running this through a lot of other people in the meantime to get feedback on it,” Phalen noted.
E-App is being developed by the Defense Department and will work to support real or near real-time validation of an individual’s responses, according to Phalen.
He said the government should consider issuing more interim clearances at the secret level or starting the investigation process before an employee has received a job offer to help address the current backlog of 700,000 applications.
