In January, the Foundations for Evidence Based Policymaking Act of 2018 was signed into law, taking key steps to strengthen the privacy protections of federal data and increase the availability of evidence to improve policymaking. The law implements half of the recommendations made by the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking, a bipartisan commission that released unanimous recommendations in 2017. “The law’s improvements to secure data access should drastically improve the ability of researchers to access federal data while maintaining data privacy,” says Hilary Hoynes, co-Director of the Opportunity Lab and former Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking member. “When fully implemented, a secure, streamlined method to access federal data could transform the types of research we conduct and how quickly it can be turned around for use by policymakers.” Read more HERE.