Security clearance

PK2008

Ive recently been asked to interview for a company which has military clients and they informed me they will need to perform a security clearance check on me.

Sounds very James Bond like- any idea what this entails?

(PS I have no criminal convictions or political memberships)

subway

this is a UK thing afaik

http://www.security-clearance.org.uk/

AARRRGH

I know someone who had to go through this in the UK - a part of it was checking for IRA members in their extended family!

PK2008

Ah I see, thanks for that link.

(No IRA people in the family as far as I know)

Ellechim

I lived in the UK and applied for a job in the Imperial War Museum back in the early nineties. Turns out (I didn't realise) that it was part of the MOD. I got a very detailed questionnaire which I seem to recall even asked me who my grandparents were and what they did, where they lived, etc. Now one of my grandads was a garda but before that was in the original IRA and a messenger in the 1916 rising - the other one was a sargeant in the Royal Irish Hussars...........

Well I bottled it and didn't fill in the form.......I wonder often what would have happened if I'd taken that job, I could be running MI5 now...........

Kali

There are essentially three levels: Basic (BC), Security (SC) and Counter-Terrorism (CTC).

For most UK gov jobs handling upto restrictively marked data on a day-to-day basis you will need BC status (takes two-four weeks) before you can even work on-site. For anything above the protected level of restricted (confidential-level), you will need SC status, just be warned SC can take upto 9 months to come through (as they need to do a number of in-depth checks on past history in country of birth), however it does last for 5 years if working in a job that requires it before a re-check. If you are not working in an area that requires SC it will expire after 2 I believe.

I'd imagine that you will have to go through the BC first, which involves one simple form just to make sure you are eligible to work, and if necessary depending on the contract you are working for, put you forward for an SC cert (this costs the company upwards of £2500, so your job should be safe enough for a few months!).

PK2008

Grand, not sure what level they require yet but Ive no skeletons in the closet so I should be ok.

I have no idea what my great grandparents were up to back in 1916 though- would that really be relevant?

uaobrien

PK2008 wrote: »

Ive recently been asked to interview for a company which has military clients and they informed me they will need to perform a security clearance check on me.

Sounds very James Bond like- any idea what this entails?

(PS I have no criminal convictions or political memberships)

Irish ones are pretty simple I would imagine, you or a relative ever been convicted of a serious offence? Any membership of dubious groups? Previous run ins with the Gardaí, that kind of thing. Probably a drug screen too.

I worked in a military contractors in the US and while I never had to run the gamut of checks, I had some funny experiences.

One girl I worked with refused to associate with me after she found out I was an Irish citizen, as she was applying for a support position at NSA (which is one thing the company I worked for provided) and they wouldn't allow her to have foreign nationals as associates, and they performed repetitive screens. LOL.

Another guy was held up on his Homeland Security application because they had to get authorization from the US Congress to have his father's records unsealed.

So trust me, there are a lot crazier security checks on the planet than the one's they do here.

uaobrien

Ellechim wrote: »

Well I bottled it and didn't fill in the form.......I wonder often what would have happened if I'd taken that job, I could be running MI5 now...........

Or running from them.

sceptre

PK2008 wrote: »

I have no idea what my great grandparents were up to back in 1916 though- would that really be relevant?

Probably not. And you might not want to know. Or, like me, you could laugh when you asked and were told.

uaobrien

PK2008 wrote: »

I have no idea what my great grandparents were up to back in 1916 though- would that really be relevant?

Well if they were Irish there's three possibilities:

a. Nothing
b. Fighting for the Brits in WWI
c. In the IRB/IRA working toward the Easter Rising.

Simple really. Of course the same applies to the people performing the background check if their ancestors were Irish. So I think you're safe on that point.

PK2008

uaobrien wrote: »

Well if they were Irish there's three possibilities:

a. Nothing
b. Fighting for the Brits in WWI
c. In the IRB/IRA working toward the Easter Rising.

Simple really. Of course the same applies to the people performing the background check if their ancestors were Irish. So I think you're safe on that point.

I couldnt care less if they were slap bang in the middle of it- ancient history