DD Form 2024 occupies a particular place in Defense recordkeeping. Its title is DD Form 2024, DoD Security Classification Guide Data Elements, July 1986, and it exists to DoD Security Classification Guide Data Elements. What the DD prefix records is an administrative judgment made long before your copy was printed: this transaction was determined to be common to the whole Department rather than peculiar to one service, and so the documentation of it was standardized at Department level.
This is why the arrangement matters to you rather than only to the archivists. not stated governs the form throughout the Department, with not stated as the responsible office, so the record you create is legible outside your own component. Joint assignments, agency details and cross-service transactions all depend on that: the paperwork does not have to be reconstructed each time it crosses a boundary.
You are looking for edition not stated, listed as not stated. Department-wide supersession is a single event rather than a rollout, which is what distinguishes edition currency on a DD form from the same question on a service publication: nobody anywhere is still accepting the previous version out of habit.
The form is laid out top to bottom in a sequence that reflects how the record will be read, not merely how it was drawn. Identification comes first because everything below it is understood in relation to a named person, unit or transaction; substantive entries follow; certification closes the document because certification attests to what precedes it. Filling out of order tends to produce internal inconsistencies — an entry that made sense before the header was settled and does not afterward.
Check the edition date before you type anything, against not stated. Old blanks accumulate in shared drives for years, and the cost of one is not obvious until a reviewer cannot find a field. Because DD forms are revised centrally and replaced across the Department in a single action, there is no component still tolerating the old layout as a local practice.
Every field takes an entry, N/A included. The reason is evidentiary rather than clerical: a completed record is supposed to show what was asked and what was answered, and blank space records neither. On dates, follow the format printed beside the field. Conventions vary between components, and a joint document is read by people who do not share your habits.
The Privacy Act Statement is not boilerplate appended for legal cover; it is the mechanism by which a statutory obligation is discharged at the moment of collection. When the government asks an individual for personal information, it must state the authority under which it asks, the principal purpose, the routine uses to which the data may be put, and whether answering is voluntary or mandatory. Those four disclosures are placed ahead of the data fields deliberately, because the point of telling you is to inform a choice you have not yet made.
Signature is the point at which a completed form becomes a certification, and the requirement follows from that. On paper it means ink in the designated block; electronically it means a credentialed digital signature, ordinarily applied with a Common Access Card in software that supports it. A name typed into the signature field is data, not an act — it demonstrates nothing about who entered it. The date beside the signature fixes when the certification was made, which is why a signed but undated block is treated as incomplete.
Recurring defects have a pattern to them, and it is mostly the pattern of a record that cannot be relied on: an edition that does not match, gaps that cannot be interpreted, entries that cannot be read after scanning, dates that could mean two things, and a certification nobody executed. For an ambiguous field, read the form's own instruction, then not stated, which controls.
Download the form
Formats available: PDF, across 2 pages and about 25 fields. That several formats coexist is a consequence of scale — the Department cannot standardize the software on every desk that needs this form, so it standardizes the document instead.
Two states of the same page circulate, and the reason is worth knowing. In the fillable pdf, the boxes are real fields holding real data; in the printable pdf, the boxes are drawings. Where a record will cross components — as Department records regularly do — the typed version is the safer artifact. Each scan, each forwarding, each reproduction costs handwriting a little legibility, and the office that finally files the record is rarely the office that received it first.
What the form asks for
- 1. Reason for submission. Press space bar to mark X in first box if new guide, second box if revision, third box if reissuance, fourth box if biennial review, fifth box if cancellation, or sixth box if correction.
- Report Control Symbol.
- 2. Promulgating document. (Include type of document, activity, symbol or serial number and date. Do not include the subject of the document. If no promulgating document, state "none." Do not exceed 46 characters.).
- 3. Classification Guide Title. (Include the full title (if unclassified) and any short title. Do not exceed 134 characters.)
- 4. Classification guide date (2 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day. Do not exceed 6 characters).
- 5. Classification guide originator. (Activity which issued guide. Do not exceed 25 characters.)
- 6. Available through DTIC. X first box if B, second box if C, third box if D, fourth box if E, fifth box if F, sixth box if X, or seventh box if No.
- 7. Biennial review date (2 digit year, 2 digit month, 2 digit day. Do not exceed 6 characters.)
- 8. Number of revisions and date of latest. (Show number of revisions first, then the date of latest revision as a 2 digit year followed by 2 digit month and 2 digit day. If no revisions have been made, so state. A reissued guide would have no revisions. Do not exceed 8 characters.)
- 9.a. Subject Matter Index Terms, line 1 (do not exceed 34 characters per line).
- 9.b. Subject Matter Index Terms.
- 9.c. Subject Matter Index Terms.
- 10. Classification of guide document. X first box if Top secret, second box if secret, third box if confidential, fourth box if unclassified, or fifth box if special access required (including if guide itself is classified).
- 11. Index source number. Enter existing number if guide is listed in Index.
- 12. Highest classification prescribed by guide: X first box if top secret, second box if secret, or third box if confidential.
- 13. The guide prescribes classification of information controlled within a Special Access Program. X first box if yes, second box if no.
- 14. Remarks.
- 15. Originator. a. Typed name (last, first, middle initial).
- 15.b. Title.
- 15.e. Date signed.
- 15.c. Office/agency department.
- 15.d. Signature.
- 16. Action Officer. a. Name (last, first, middle initial).
- 16.b. Telephone number (DSN if outside DC metropolitan area).
Route the executed form as not stated or local guidance directs, and retain a duplicate first. Cross-component routing is ordinary for DD forms, which is precisely why a personal copy earns its keep: the receiving office may belong to an organization you have no standing to query about a missing document.
Cross-referenced documents are found by series and number, with nothing further required. That the DD sequence is unified across the Department means a cited number identifies one form and no other, which is the practical payoff of centralizing the numbering in the first place.
Procedures that touch both Department and service processes will cite forms from both sequences, and the coincidence of numbers between them is exactly that — coincidence. An Army proponent maintains the DA series for the Army; not stated or another Department office maintains the DD series for the whole Department. Two independent registries, two independent numbering runs, no correspondence at any value.
Editions change for reasons that originate above the form itself. The prescribing directive is reissued and the form follows; the information the Department needs to collect changes and the fields change with it; the statutory notice language is amended and every form carrying that notice is republished. None of these events announces itself to the person who downloaded a copy last year, which is why confirming not stated at the moment of download is the only reliable check available to you.
What you have here is the document and a description of it, which is a different thing from guidance. This page is not an organ of the Department, gives no legal or procedural advice, and makes no representation about the outcome of any filing; the offices that administer the requirement are the only ones positioned to answer that. Applicability, eligibility and procedural questions belong to not stated, to your servicing personnel office, or to the office designated in not stated.
Questions and answers
- What is DD Form 2024?
- DD Form 2024, DoD Security Classification Guide Data Elements, July 1986
- Which edition is current?
- Not stated by the publisher
- Who is responsible for this form?
- Not stated
- In which formats can it be downloaded?