The Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) is composed of distinguished academics who advise on scientific, policy, and organizational decisions about proposals to analyze data (when review processes are made necessary by specific companies). Subcommittees for specialized, technical, or policy issues are formed from SAC members.

Members of the Privacy and Security Subcommittee are responsible for advising on privacy protocols, statistical methods for the analysis of privacy protected data, and computational and security needs for social scientists analyzing company data. The committee liaises with the OpenDP project and the privacy staff within companies.