The Defense Personnel Security Research Center (PERSEREC) is an entity of the United States Department of Defense (DoD), based in Monterey, California, which seeks to improve the "effectiveness, efficiency, and fairness of DoD personnel suitability, security, and reliability systems."
PERSEREC reports to the Office of People Analytics (OPA), which reports to the Defense Human Resources Activity (DHRA), which reports to the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness).
This DoD research center:
In 1986, DoD established PERSEREC in response to findings by a DoD Security Review Commission (or "Stilwell Commission") to improve personnel security in the wake of the John Anthony Walker espionage case in 1985. DoD chose Monterey to locate PERSEREC near the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) West and the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) to take advantage of an existing group of personnel security researchers. DoD planned to close the agency by 1990.
By 1992, DoD decided to make PERSEREC permanent as the Cold War ended with the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. PERSEREC responded by helping ensure modifications in security briefings that reflect such changes. PERSEREC also drafted the first all-federal adjudicative guidelines as part of greater standardization of procedures in response to response to increasing reciprocity of clearances. The President of the United States (POTUS) approved those guidelines in 1997 and their update in 2006.
PERSEREC also analyzes and tracks "patterns of malicious insider behavior" since 1947, making PERSEREC a "principal provider of unclassified information on espionage and insider computer misuse to the security community."
PERSEREC has also automated reference and training materials related to personnel security, as well as harnessed information technology, all of which facilitates initial clearance investigations and helps decision-making and diagnostics, e.g., eAdjudication.
James A. Riedel has been a director of research and supervised many publications.
Reports include: