SIRAD: Secure Infrastructure for Research with Administrative Data

Abstract

Governments collect large quantities of administrative records through the programs and services they administer. These data can generate important insights into new policy and evaluations of existing policy but are often difficult to access because they are siloed across government agencies and subject to privacy laws and regulations. RIPL developed a data integration pipeline, SIRAD, that securely joins administrative data sets from multiple government agencies and replaces personally identifiable information with anonymous identifiers to maintain privacy while facilitating research, insights, and fact-based policy. Data processed with SIRAD have been used in nine research studies and 75 policy memos.