FACTS-IR: Fairness, Accountability, Confidentiality, Transparency, and Safety in Information Retrieval

The purpose of the SIGIR 2019 workshop on Fairness, Accountability, Confidentiality, Transparency, and Safety (FACTS-IR) was to explore challenges in responsible information retrieval system development and deployment. To this end, the workshop aimed to crowd-source from the larger SIGIR community and draft an actionable research agenda on five key dimensions of responsible information retrieval: fairness, accountability, confidentiality, transparency, and safety. Such an agenda can guide others in the community that are interested in pursuing FACTS-IR research, as well as inform potential funders about relevant research avenues. The workshop brought together a diverse set of researchers and practitioners interested in contributing to the development of a technical research agenda for responsible information retrieval.