NBI Clearance

So the company suddenly decided to ask me for an NBI clearance. No sweat, right? NOT! The way things work is that you apply for a clearance, they get your personal details, fingerprint you, then run you through their database, and if your name matches a known person with a “derogatory record” you get a “hit” and getting a clearance is suddenly so much less straightforward.

Wait a minute, name match? Yup, you got that right! If your name say matches that of a known criminal, then your clearance gets delayed from quite some time as they check you further. This can vary from a few days to a month or two. You can just imagine the grief of people with pretty common names.

But why name? Don’t they have a more unique way of identifying people? Like maybe fingerprints?!? I mean that’s why they fingerprint you, right? If there’s a name match, you would think the next thing they’d do is compare fingerprints, right? But apparently that’s still not the case because why would they already call a “hit” on just a name match? Why do they still bother interviewing you and having you  sign a written and notarized denial?

Fifteen(!) years ago, I worked with DOST and NBI at preliminary efforts towards an automated fingerprint identification system (AFIS). Guess nothing has changed since. Sadness.