A network of 24 secure, prefabricated booths—SafePods—now lets approved researchers across the UK access sensitive government data from their own university, rather than travelling hundreds of miles to a handful of central locations. The problem is that many data controllers—such as the Office for National Statistics or the Scottish Government—require strict physical and network security before they will let researchers use their data. Most universities cannot afford the dedicated secure rooms, ongoing audits, and staffing needed to meet those requirements. As a result, researchers either made long journeys to the few existing access sites, or abandoned the research entirely. The SafePod Network solves this by providing standardised, pre-built secure rooms that plug into existing university infrastructure. Each pod meets the security demands of multiple data controllers at once, so a single pod can serve researchers working with different datasets. The network now covers 24 UK universities. In the next phase, the team will launch SafePack—a low-cost, portable secure access point that individual researchers could install in their own office or home. If successful, this would dramatically scale up secure data access across the UK without requiring new central funding, enabling more researchers to work with administrative data on public benefit questions such as health, education, and social policy.
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Data controllers working with ADR UK to provide access to their data for public benefit research have varied risk appetites. This means that there are differences in where they will allow a Researcher to access their data from and how it is to be accessed. While some data controllers demand strict controls over access locations, others are happy with this happening from offices or a person’s home. However, all insist on having secure and audited networks to this point of access. This has meant many UK Researchers struggle to access some types of data from their workplaces. Their institutions are unable to resource the significant financial overheads involved, the space needed, and the continuing security assurances required by data controllers. The only other solution has meant that Researchers having to travel the often-large distance to acceptable points of access or not undertake the research. The role of the SafePod Network (SPN) is to remove these barriers and solve this problem with flexible, dynamic and cost-effective data access solutions, ensuring that ADR UK can support access to all types of administrative data, to all Researchers irrespective of where their place of work is in the UK. Since the SafePod Network (SPN) launched in October 2021, it has transformed the landscape for secure data access solutions and locations. Prior to launch, there were only a few main locations in the UK which offered access to a limited set of data. The SPN has since established a network of 24 SafePods (which are small, standardised and prefabricated safe settings) in operation at universities across the UK. SafePods provide approved Researchers with secure access to multiple different Data Centre’s data. This includes data from the Office for National Statistics, UK Data Service, SAIL Databank and the Scottish Government. In the next investment period, the SPN will launch SafePack, the most flexible and cost-effective secure data access solution. SafePack will make it possible for individual Researchers to afford their own low cost highly secure point of access, sitting in their workplace and perhaps their home. This means, at no new cost to the ESRC, the SPN will be able significantly scale up the number of highly secure points of data access as Researchers will be able to justify this cost to their institutions or funders. The SPN has achieved the critical success factors, as set out in the 2022-2026 case for support. These were: To be recognised and trusted across the UK as the main provider of safe settings for secure data access for research. To maintain security for SafePods and supporting services. To implement agreements with Data Centres for access to their data through the SPN. To help improve the quantity and diversity of public benefit research. To continue to innovate to provide secure data access solutions for research. Furthermore, the new SafePoint and SafePack developments will build on the success of the SafePod Network to provide scalable, standardised secure data access services for use from Researchers institutions, offices and home. This will effectively enable any approved Researcher in the UK to have a secure data access solution for their research, and help meet ADR UK’s long term objectives to facilitate better access to administrative data across the UK, and support the demand for existing and newly created flagship datasets.
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