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Contact Us Division of Personnel Security 
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This is the September 23, 2009 issue of the DPSAC NEWS NIH Gets Ready to Begin Issuing HHS ID Badges to the General NIH Population The HSPD-12 Program Office reports that a majority of AOs have completed the enrollment process and received a new HHS ID Badge and SmartCard reader. As the countdown begins to start badging the general NIH population, the Program Office is continuing to identify and enroll the remaining AOs who have not completed the enrollment process. Unfortunately, the Program Office has found it necessary to re-initiate NED “forced HHS ID badge renewal” tasks for some AOs who didn’t complete the initial renewal task and it “timed out.” In most cases, travel, vacations, and incomplete submissions are to blame. To issue HHS ID badges to all of the approximately 34,000 current NIH ID badge holders by the June, 2010 deadline set by the Department, the HSPD-12 Program Office will need to ‘flip the switch’ soon to begin processing the general NIH workforce. Remember, AO Sponsors who have not received their HHS ID Badge (SmartCard) and SmartCard reader will not be able to sponsor individuals once this change occurs. Once the HSPD-12 Program Office is comfortable that sufficient AO Sponsors are enrolled and badged the switch will be ‘flipped.’ This will ensure that sufficient numbers of qualified Sponsors are on board in each IC to handle the expected crush of applicants (approximately 900 individuals must be processed each week to meet the June, 2010 deadline).
If you are an Administrative Officer or equivalent at NIH and plan to serve as a Sponsor: You are required to take Sponsor training. The Sponsor acts on behalf of NIH to substantiate the need for a Federal ID badge in NED. Training must be completed before the Sponsor role is assigned to a NED user. The Sponsor training module is posted at: http://www.idbadge.nih.gov/training/docs/HHS_PIV_Training_for_Sponsors_2-4-09.pdf. In order to receive credit for satisfactorily completing this training, upon completion of the module you should print out the Certificate of Completion and If your IC has new AOs: Contact the HSPD-12 Program Office (HSPD-12@mail.nih.gov) with their names and contact information. If you are an AO who has taken the training but hasn’t yet enrolled: Contact the HSPD-12 Program Office (HSPD-12@mail.nih.gov) to let them know that you have completed the training and wish to begin the enrollment process. Note: Once you have completed the enrollment process you will be alerted by e-mail to pick up your new HHS ID Badge. You do not need to contact Access Control or the HSPD-12 Program Office to check the status of your new badge. Obtaining Your SmartCard Reader If you’ve been issued an HHS ID badge but haven’t received your SmartCard reader, please contact Mike Lyden in the HSPD-12 Program Office (lydenm@mail.nih.gov; 301-443-8741). Give Mike your name and complete office address. Also indicate how many government-issued computers you use. He will send you the card reader(s) via interoffice mail. Do you feel as if you’re losing control of your NED inbox and want to take it back? The NED team has prepared a series of answers to Frequently Asked Questions that should help put you back in the driver’s seat. In a September 8, 2009 e-mail to the AO community (Subject: 'Cleaning up the tasks in your NED Inbox'), NED Program Manager Jeff Erickson announced the posting of these very helpful FAQs at: http://nedinfo.nih.gov/docs/NED-FAQ-ManagingNEDInbox.pdf. Solutions to common problems are provided at this site to help AOs effectively manage their NED Inbox. For example, find out how you can more quickly identify tasks requiring your attention in your NED Inbox; be confident in deleting tasks in your NED Inbox; learn how to deal with multiple tasks for the same person or with tasks that you aren’t sure what to do with. As always, if you get stuck or have any questions about managing your NED Inbox, you should contact the NIH Help Desk at: http://ithelpdesk.nih.gov/support/ or 301-496-4357. HHS ID Badge Authentication Required for Sponsorship Tasks Sponsors who have been issued an HHS ID badge must now use this login to NED in order to sponsor individuals. This requirement is in place in order to move forward with the issuance of HHS ID badges to the general NIH population. For technical problems, including the installation of the USB Card Reader or completion of NED tasks, please contact the NIH Helpdesk at 301-496-4357; for all other questions related to the process, please contact the HSPD-12 Program Office at HSPD12@mail.nih.gov. Logging in to NED with your HHS ID Badge and Accessing Other NIH Login Applications NIH IT specialists continue to work on resolving an issue that recently came to the attention of the NED team, namely, that after you login to NED with your HHS ID badge you can’t login to another NIH Login application ( e.g., ITAS) without closing and reopening your browser. Jeff Erickson, NED Program Manager, recently acknowledged the problem in an e-mail to the AO community and reported that a solution for these issues will not be deployed before mid-October. Help in Resetting Your HHS ID Badge PIN Please e-mail facilityaccesscontrol@mail.nih.gov and provide your full name, IC, and phone number. An Access Control specialist will contact you to help you reset your HHS ID badge PIN.
Help in Resetting Your HHS ID Badge Please e-mail facilityaccesscontrol@mail.nih.gov and provide your full name, IC, and phone number. An Access Control specialist will contact you to help you reset your HHS ID badge. The following message was recently sent from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to Federal agencies currently electronically submitting investigations through e-QIP. The message describes a change in calculating submission timeliness. Questions should be directed to Kimberly R. Northime (Kimberly.Northime@opm.gov). “With the release of e-QIP 2.00.15, unacceptable cases can now be returned to the requesting agency electronically. When returned, the case will have a “Pending Agency Review” status. Agency Administrators can allow their users to view case status data and enable the resubmission options for unacceptable cases. This will grant the Agency’s Approvers the ability to correct submission errors, upload new attachments, modify the Agency Use Block (AUB), and re-release the unacceptable case or reject the request back to the subject. The requesting agency still has the option of rejecting all cases back to the subject to recertify. Currently, the submission timeliness for e-QIP is calculated from the date the subject certifies his/her data until the case is received at OPM with all necessary attachments. If the requesting agency receives an “unacceptable” notice and the error can be corrected by the agency without the subject re-certifying the data, the submission timeliness will still be calculated from the original certification date. Due to this new automated feature, agencies may see an increase in their submission timeliness. For example, if a case was returned unacceptable only because there was no fingerprint card, the agency could fix this error without the applicant re-certifying the data. Then, when OPM received the fingerprint card, the original certification date would be used in calculating the submission timeliness. If you have any questions, please contact the System Access Support Team at 724-794-5612, extension 4600 or your OPM Agency Liaison.”
OPM Ahead of Schedule on Security Clearance Reforms "Despite concerns from the Government Accountability Office and frustration from lawmakers, the head of the Office of Personnel Management on Tuesday said the government is on track to reduce the average length of time required to process security clearance applications by the end of the year. OPM Director John Berry told lawmakers on a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee he was optimistic government will meet a 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act mandate to reduce the average processing time for security clearance applications to 60 days by the end of 2009 for 90 percent of all cases. "I am very proud to come before you and report, we are ahead of schedule," said Berry, during a hearing of the subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia. Berry said OPM has eliminated a backlog in cases referred from other agencies for background investigations, and cut the time required for investigations significantly since 2007. That year, initial investigations took an average of 115 days in 90 percent of cases; by the second quarter of 2009 the average time was 42 days. A more centralized computer database of cases, methods of automatically deciding cases without red flags and other reforms helped streamline the process, according to Berry. Jeffrey Zients, deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, said a new Standard Form 86, used to investigate applicants in national security positions, would be available for public comment by the end of September. The form has taken longer than anticipated to roll out because the Obama administration was concerned it oversimplified necessary levels of security, he said. Berry and Zients said continued emphasis on transparency and consistency would increase reciprocity of clearances, so agencies could rely on and trust investigations completed for other agencies. A GAO witnesses noted that despite these improvements, the Defense Department's security clearance process remains a high risk to the government. While the Pentagon has made progress on speed, more attention must be paid to the quality of investigations, said Brenda Farrell, director of defense capabilities and management at GAO. "Timeliness alone does not provide a complete picture of the security clearance process," she said. Citing past GAO reports and a newly released update, Farrell chided OPM and other agencies for failing to report information about all security clearance applications -- as opposed to the fastest 90 percent -- and said government could benefit from a better roadmap for reform. She also noted a previous report that found many investigations had been closed despite incomplete information about the applicants. Berry vowed that by the end of 2010 the issue would be removed from GAO's list of federal initiatives and programs at high risk of management problems. "We're not at the goal line yet, but we're within 10 yards," he said. Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio -- who plans to retire in 2011 and said he wants to see the issue resolved before he leaves -- expressed frustration at the beginning of the hearing that it was taking so long to improve the clearance process. "I see little evidence of progress thus far, in furtherance of these security clearance reform mandates," Voinovich said. "This is serious business."" Q. I’m a bit confused about when to make Enrollment appointment requests. When should I schedule an appointment? A. To qualify for an enrollment appointment, individuals MUST be properly updated in NED, sponsored for an ID badge by their AO, and be pre-screened for investigation requirements by DPSAC. To tell if a person meets these criteria for an appointment, the following words must appear in the “Track Badge Status” function in NED (https://ned.nih.gov/ned): • “Awaiting Applicant Enrollment” or • “Waiting for DPSAC to review fingerprint results” All AOs are encouraged to check this before making an appointment for anyone they service.
A biweekly e-newsletter from the Office of Research Services, Division of Personnel Security and Access Control (ORS/DPSAC) to keep you informed as NIH rolls out "Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12" (HSPD-12) establishing a common identification standard to better safeguard NIH and its workforce. |
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