ACM FAccT

ACM FAccT (the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency) is a peer-reviewed academic conference series sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery. It is recognized as the top-tier publication venue for advancing research on fairness, accountability, and transparency in socio-technical systems. The conference originated as FAT* in 2018, building on earlier specialized workshops including FAT/ML (Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency in Machine Learning), FAT/Rec, DAT, and Ethics in NLP. The inaugural conference was held at New York University on February 23-24, 2018, with Solon Barocas (Cornell University) serving as General Chair and Sorelle Friedler (Haverford College) and Christo Wilson (Northeastern University) as Program Committee Chairs. The first conference proceedings were published in the Proceedings of Machine Learning Research. The conference affiliated with ACM in 2019 and changed its name from FAT* to FAccT following the 2020 conference. Since its founding, the conference has been held annually in locations around the world: New York (2018), Atlanta (2019), Barcelona (2020), Virtual/Toronto (2021), Seoul (2022), Chicago (2023), Rio de Janeiro (2024), Athens (2025), and Montreal (2026). This global rotation reflects the conference's commitment to geographic diversity and inclusion. The conference addresses concerns about algorithmic systems used in high-impact domains like credit, insurance, healthcare, parole, social security, and immigration. It examines whether decisions should be outsourced to data- and code-driven computing systems and evaluates technical solutions with respect to existing problems, reflecting on their benefits and risks. Research areas include audits and evaluation practices, system development and deployment, experiences and interactions, critical studies, law and policy, and philosophy. ACM FAccT is governed by an all-volunteer Executive Committee, a Steering Committee, a Strategy Committee, and a Sponsorship Committee. The conference is funded through corporate and foundation sponsorships, with 2025 sponsors including AWS, Google DeepMind, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Schmidt Sciences, Sony, TikTok, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, and RC Trust. Sponsorship funds are pooled to subsidize registration costs and provide travel grants, particularly for PhD students, scholars from economically developing countries, and members of civil society organizations. The research published at FAccT has significantly influenced public policy and corporate practices. The conference has contributed to important guidelines including the European Union's AI Act and the OECD AI Principles. More than 600 researchers, policymakers, and practitioners attended the 2020 conference, and the community has continued to grow in subsequent years.