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When a national security clearance holder leaves, they retain their knowledge of your organisation’s business operations, intellectual property, classified information, and security vulnerabilities. Managing their departure well will help to reduce the risk of this knowledge being misused.

If you’re a candidate for a national security clearance, this section gives you an overview of the vetting process and tells you what your responsibilities and rights are.

Your organisation must consider personnel security throughout a national security clearance holder’s employment. While recruitment and departure processes offer clear opportunities to manage the risks associated with a clearance holder, the most challenging and critical stage of the personnel security lifecycle is managing the clearance holder throughout their employment.

This section helps you understand your responsibilities as a national security clearance holder, so you can meet them and stay suitable to hold a clearance.

Managing a national security clearance holder includes monitoring any concerning behaviour, reporting and responding to security incidents involving them, managing their emergency access to information, assets, or work locations, and managing changes to their security clearance level.

A clearance holder’s manager must communicate with them clearly to set the right expectations for their role. The clearance holder must understand your organisation’s security policies and practices, and be aware of them when they change.

After your organisation gets a vetting recommendation from the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS), you need to review it, decide whether to grant a national security clearance, and let the NZSIS know what you’ve decided.

A government organisation’s chief security officer is responsible for submitting vetting requests for national security clearances to the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) using the Online Vetting Request (OVR) system.

Before your organisation submits a vetting request for a national security clearance, you must check the candidate’s eligibility and suitability.

This section provides guidance to help government organisations understand when someone in their organisation needs to hold a national security clearance and when they don't.

Effective pre-employment checks reduce the risk of threats to your people, information, and assets. However, people and their circumstances can change. Changes can happen over time or suddenly as a reaction to an event. Your organisation needs to make sure that people remain suitable for having access to your information and assets.

Set clear expectations about security. New employees, employees changing roles, and contractors, must understand your security policies and practices as soon as possible after joining your organisation.

Pre-employment checks are the foundation of good personnel security. They reduce the risk of a trusted person harming your organisation or business.