Honesty allegations in the decided record
About 22% of decided hearing-level cases in the record include an honesty allegation: a claim that the applicant falsified a form, omitted required information, or was not forthright with an investigator. How those cases were resolved is the strongest single association we have measured in the record. The numbers below are measured history, each shown with the count behind it, not advice and not a prediction about any case.
An allegation is not a finding
An honesty allegation is a claim the government must prove, and judges decide it case by case. When the judge found the falsification deliberate, 3.2% of cases were resolved favorably (132 of 4,149). When the applicant rebutted the accusation and the judge found no deliberate falsification, 62.0% were resolved favorably (749 of 1,209), a higher rate than cases with no honesty allegation at all (39.0%). In the remaining 480 cases the decision records no clear finding either way; those resolved favorably 37.1% of the time.
These are associations in decided cases, not causes: the same facts that support a deliberateness finding also tend to make the rest of a case harder.
Correcting the record first
In 189 decided cases, the record shows the applicant corrected the omission or false answer before being confronted with it. Those cases were resolved favorably 66.7% of the time (126 of 189), against 16.5% for the other 5,649 cases with an honesty allegation. The security rules themselves list a prompt, good-faith correction, made before being confronted, as a recognized way to reduce the concern, and the decided record reflects it.
By kind of allegation
| Allegation | Cases | Resolved favorably |
|---|---|---|
| False answer on the security form | 3,049 | 10.0% |
| Omission of required information | 2,643 | 26.4% |
| Not forthright in the interview | 1,563 | 11.2% |
| Falsified employment or other records | 103 | 10.7% |
A case can appear under more than one kind. Each link opens the decided cases behind the number.
What was allegedly concealed
| Subject | Cases | Resolved favorably |
|---|---|---|
| Financial issues | 1,867 | 18.9% |
| Criminal history | 1,545 | 14.3% |
| Other subjects | 1,198 | 16.9% |
| Drug involvement | 767 | 10.8% |
| Employment history | 392 | 14.5% |
| Foreign contacts or interests | 111 | 18.9% |
| Mental-health history | 45 | 7 of 45 |
| Education or credentials | 43 | 6 of 43 |
| Alcohol history | 18 | 1 of 18 |
| Sexual behavior | 11 | 1 of 11 |
Groups under 50 cases show raw counts instead of a rate.
The same issue, disclosed and undisclosed
For each underlying issue, the record can be split two ways: cases where the issue stood on its own, and cases where the judge also weighed an allegation that the applicant hid that same issue.
| Underlying issue | Issue alone: cases | Resolved favorably | With concealment allegation: cases | Resolved favorably |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| F · Financial | 13,485 | 33.2% | 1,781 | 19.2% |
| J · Criminal Conduct | 2,994 | 25.8% | 933 | 13.6% |
| H · Drugs | 3,054 | 27.5% | 538 | 11.0% |
| B · Foreign Influence | 3,850 | 55.0% | 81 | 21.0% |
Issues with fewer than 75 hidden-too cases are not shown. The two groups differ in more than disclosure, so read the gap as an association, not a cause.
How these numbers are measured
Scope: decided hearing-level industrial cases in the public DOHA record (26,382 cases through 2026-06-18; the record updates as new decisions are ingested). An honesty allegation means a Personal Conduct allegation that the applicant falsified a security form, omitted required information, was not forthright in an interview, or falsified employment or other records; these are identified from our per-allegation case profiles, which cover essentially every case where Personal Conduct was charged. Whether the judge found the falsification deliberate, and whether the record shows a correction before being confronted, are read from each decision. Every rate is shown with the count behind it. Every number describes decided history and carries no prediction. A 2018 Carnegie Mellon research draft that hand-tagged about 5,000 cases from an earlier copy of this record reached the same conclusion; the numbers on this page are measured directly from the current record.