Executive Summary
The need for using data to generate insights that can help improve American society is vast and urgent. Increasingly, researchers need capabilities to link together data collected through formal surveys, federal program administration, and non-governmental data sources. However, the lack of coordination throughout the federal government’s decentralized data infrastructure and statistical system limits the ability to generate the relevant, timely information demanded by policymakers.
Building on the initial recommendations from consensus panels of experts in recent years, we propose a strategy for developing a National Secure Data Service that would revolutionize the federal government’s data analysis capabilities, while promoting and even expanding privacy protections available today. The data service would modernize the country’s antiquated, inefficient, and often ineffective data infrastructure for research to develop a modern, cutting-edge system that would substantially advance evidence-based policymaking capabilities in the United States.
This paper explores the nuances of multiple approaches for implementing a data service, based on core criteria for developing a successful infrastructure. The criteria include consideration of attributes for transparency and public trust, legal authority for privacy protections, independence, ability to access data, scalability, sustainability, accountability, and intergovernmental cooperation. Four different approaches are weighed:
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Establishing a New Agency at the Commerce Department
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Re-Tasking an Existing Agency at the Commerce Department
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Creating a New Federally-Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) at the National Science Foundation (NSF)
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Launching a Public-Private Partnership in a University Consortium
In reviewing the capabilities for each option, each of which would be improvements from the status quo, we recommend launching a new center in NSF. The FFRDC approach has many advantages over other options. It would afford considerable oversight, transparency, agility, and accountability for the envisioned activities paired with technical skills, credibility, and infrastructure offered by NSF, one of the country’s leading institutional sponsors of research. NSF operates within existing legal frameworks for protecting privacy, yet still advances strategies for enabling researchers and data users to conduct evidence-building activities. In addition, NSF’s deep ties to researchers in the natural and social sciences, as well as its support of advances in computer and data science and security, lead us to conclude that NSF would most successfully launch and sustain a researcher-centric data service. A final section of the paper outlines a roadmap for implementing such an approach and poses questions for consideration by the Federal Advisory Committee on Data for Evidence Building.
While aspects of the proposed National Secure Data Service could be implemented administratively by NSF, we call on Congress to authorize the project and specify oversight, transparency, and accountability preferences. The burden for using statistical and other protected data is high, even while the benefits are tremendous. If evidence-based policymaking is to succeed long-term in the United States, the American people must retain public trust in a system that serves their interests, protects their information, and advances policies that improve their quality of life, our economy, and society. Rapid action on a data service does just that by modernizing our country’s data infrastructure for the public good.
