The Department of Defense is seeking several small companies that can provide the Information Technology (IT) solutions and processes that will deliver high-assurance security clearance determinations in the least amount of time at the lowest reasonable cost.
According to the request for information (RFI) at
(BTA2010-01), the Defense Information System for Security (DISS) program office under the Business Transformation Agency (BTA) at the DoD seeks information related to the development of the Joint Verification System (JVS) and Enterprise Application Integration and Portal Services components of the DoD’s end-to-end security clearance process reform initiative.
The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) of 2004 was written to address national security issues, including the security clearance process. In 2007, the Joint Security and Suitability Reform Team (now referred to as the Joint Reform Team or JRT) was established with the goal to reform the federal government suitability and security clearance processes, the RFI said.
In response to the IRTPA, the JRT developed a process to provide further improvements to the suitability and security clearance process. It provided a framework for an enterprise-wide, end-to-end process, supported by appropriate IT systems, to make hiring, credentialing, and clearance processes even more timely and efficient to meet IRTPA guidelines, according to the solicitation.
According to the solicitation, the JRT has outlined that outdated technology and disparate business processes have affected the timeliness, quality and cost of the security clearance process. Problems with delays in the process have affected the government’s ability to hire the right personnel and the industry’s ability to begin new projects in a timely manner, the RFI added.
The DISS program was stood up to address the security clearance issues for DoD.
The DISS Enterprise Architecture Solution is an Integrated Enterprise System. The future vision of DISS is to provide a set of enterprise services to expose, communicate, reuse, and share services, across the enterprise, supporting the “end-to-end” process, the solicitation said.
“The DISS architecture shall establish and maintain an integrated, secure overall capability into which appropriate data relevant to the granting, denial, or revocation of a security clearance or access pertaining to military, civilian, or government contractor personnel shall be viewed, tracked and accesses from all authorized investigative and adjudicative agencies,” according to the notice.
DISS shall support functionalities to integrate information between existing DoD clearance tracking systems and other authorized and disparate investigative and adjudicative agencies into a single consistent and consolidate system view transparent to the end users, the RFI said.
“The future DISS solution shall ensure the quality in all security clearance processes can be monitored, metrics can be measured, and results can be shared with the congressional oversight of clearance reform teams,” the solicitation added.
According to the RFI, DISS shall increase a decision-maker’s ability to ensure reciprocity of clearances as well as address the requirements below:
- provide near real-time, accurate and integrated security clearance investigative and adjudicative information;
- support efficient and effective resourcing and management of security clearance requirements;
- provide the ability to analyze and forecast security clearance information;
- support compliance with DoD security clearance policies;
- provide data warehouse capabilities;
- strengthen reporting ability;
- provide automated analytical tools for security clearance trend analysis and forecasting based on end-to-end historical data;
- support federate search for security clearance information queries; and
- provide timely and consistent information as part of the DoD composite view that will allow decision-makers to make sound security clearance decisions.
“The DISS process will be supported by multiple IT systems, some of which currently exist, that address the processes of adjudicative case management, automated record checks, security clearance verification, enterprise application integration and portal services,” the solicitation said.
Responses to the RFI must be submitted to DISS, by 3 p.m. EDT, July 13.