The number of security clearances has fallen by 635,803 in the last year – about 12 percent – as the administration looks to cut down on the number of people who hold clearances.

The overall drop is a combination of 164,501 people who had a security clearance and had access to clearance-level information and the 471,302 who had a clearance but not regular access to clearance-level information, according to a recently released report.

The report, issued by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, stems from an administration effort to cut down the number of security clearances and evaluate how the government awards and administers its security clearances.

The administration launched the effort in the wake of high-profile security lapses such as former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden and in large-scale data breaches and oversight lapses at security clearance processing contractor USIS.

While security clearances among federal employees and contractors both fell, the number held by other individuals, such as researchers, grew by about 10 percent, according to the report.

Agencies also approved fewer new clearances than in fiscal 2013, according to the report. In 2013 agencies approved about 777,168 clearances, but only 665,437 new clearances in fiscal 2014.

The drop in clearances is directly attributable to administration efforts to cut back on the number of people with access to classified information, according to the report.

"These decreases were the result of efforts across the USG to review and validate whether an employee or contractor still requires access to classified information," the report said.

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