Who this affects
Arrest records and security clearances
Cleared personnel are the one group for whom a state expungement order is legally irrelevant. The SF-86 requires disclosure of records that were sealed, expunged or dismissed, and the adjudicative guidelines permit action on a credible allegation with no charge at all.
The guideline does not need a conviction
SEAD 4, Guideline J, disqualifying condition ¶ 31(b) reaches evidence — including a credible allegation, an admission, or matters of official record — of criminal conduct, regardless of whether the individual was formally charged, prosecuted or convicted.
The structure matters. A dismissal or acquittal appears in ¶ 32 as a mitigating condition — no reliable evidence to support that the individual committed the offence — not as a bar at the threshold. You are mitigating, not defeating.
The SF-86 is equally explicit. DCSA's own guide instructs applicants to report information regardless of whether the record has been sealed, expunged or otherwise stricken from the court record, or the charge was dismissed.
The government now watches continuously
Continuous Vetting under Trusted Workforce 2.0 is operational, and criminal activity is one of its enumerated automated checks, run at any time during the period of eligibility. DCSA has reported roughly four million federal employees and contractors continuously vetted.
The arrest feed is FBI Rap Back, which DCSA describes as enabling real-time notifications of changes to an individual's criminal record through the fingerprint system. The government's own transition reporting says potentially adverse information is now collected on average three years faster for Top Secret holders and seven years faster for Secret holders than under the old periodic model.
Your employer reports independently of you: under the NISPOM rule at 32 CFR § 117.8(c)(1), contractors must report adverse information about cleared employees, and the duty survives the end of employment. SEAD 3 lists arrests among reportable activities at every access level, to be reported as soon as possible.
What is worth doing about search results
Nothing on this page suggests hiding anything, and you should not try. Disclosure obligations here are broad, the vetting is continuous, and a concealment finding is a worse problem than the underlying arrest — mitigating conditions exist for the offence, not for the omission.
What removal work legitimately addresses is the commercial layer that has nothing to do with adjudication: aggregator copies, people-search profiles, and a booking photograph surfacing when a colleague, a neighbour or a prospective private employer searches your name. Report everything you are required to report, and separately clean up the copies that no rule requires anyone to keep.
Report it even if a court expunged it
The questionnaire is explicit and it catches people every year. Section 22 instructs you to report the information regardless of whether the record has been sealed, expunged, or otherwise stricken from the court record, or whether the charge was dismissed. There is exactly one carve-out, for federal simple-possession expungements issued under two named federal provisions. A state-court expungement does not relieve the duty.
The seven-year window applies to the arrest and citation questions and not to the rest. Being currently on trial or awaiting trial carries no time limit, and the domestic-violence protective order question asks whether you have ever been issued one.
One change to watch. The SF-86 is being replaced by a consolidated Personnel Vetting Questionnaire, approved in November 2023 and rolling out through the newer vetting system. Whether it keeps the same seven-year window and the same sealed-and-expunged instruction is not something we can confirm — so check the form in front of you rather than the guidance written about the old one.
Common questions
My record was expunged — do I still report it on the SF-86?
Yes. DCSA's guide says to report regardless of whether the record was sealed, expunged or stricken, or the charge dismissed. Treat expungement as irrelevant to this form.
Can I be denied over an arrest that was dropped?
Guideline J ¶ 31(b) permits reliance on evidence of criminal conduct regardless of charge or conviction, with the absence of reliable evidence available as a mitigating condition. So it is arguable, not automatic.
Will removing search results help my clearance?
No, and do not do it for that reason. It helps with employers, neighbours and clients who search your name. Your clearance runs on disclosure and on continuous vetting fed by fingerprint records.
Try the free route first
Google removes your home address, phone number, email and — since February 2026 — government ID numbers at no cost. More than 10 million people have used it. It does not cover arrest records, and it will not touch a government or newspaper page, but it is free and it is worth running first.
Open Google’s Results about you tool
Sources
- SEAD 4 Guideline J — as quoted in a DOHA decision
- DCSA — SF-86 guide
- DCSA — Continuous Vetting
- Trusted Workforce 2.0 progress report
- 32 CFR § 117.8 — contractor reporting
- SEAD 3 awareness briefing
- Standard Form 86 (SF-86)
- SEAD 4 — adjudicative guidelines
Every claim on this page traces to the sources above, checked on 2026-08-25. Rules in this area change — several of the ones on this page changed in the last three years. If you find something here that is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.
