# Distribution-Free Fair Federated Learning with Small Samples

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.16158 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.16158/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 29 of its 43 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 25 Feb 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 29 of 29)

- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [Equality of Opportunity in Supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.02413/) (2016)
- [Federated Learning: Challenges, Methods, and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.07873/) (2019)
- [Ditto: Fair and Robust Federated Learning Through Personalization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.04221/) (2020)
- [A Reductions Approach to Fair Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.02453/) (2018)
- [Retiring Adult: New Datasets for Fair Machine Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.04884/) (2021)
- [Algorithmic decision making and the cost of fairness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1701.08230/) (2017)
- [Fairness in Machine Learning: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.04053/) (2020)
- [Fairness Beyond Disparate Treatment & Disparate Impact: Learning Classification without Disparate Mistreatment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.08452/) (2016)
- [Think Locally, Act Globally: Federated Learning with Local and Global Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.01523/) (2020)
- [Why Is My Classifier Discriminatory?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.12002/) (2018)
- [FairFed: Enabling Group Fairness in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.00857/) (2021)
- [Collaborative Fairness in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.12161/) (2020)
- [A Confidence-Based Approach for Balancing Fairness and Accuracy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1601.05764/) (2016)
- [Satisfying Real-world Goals with Dataset Constraints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.07558/) (2016)
- [An Efficiency-boosting Client Selection Scheme for Federated Learning with Fairness Guarantee](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.01783/) (2020)
- [It's COMPASlicated: The Messy Relationship between RAI Datasets and Algorithmic Fairness Benchmarks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.05498/) (2021)
- [Addressing Algorithmic Disparity and Performance Inconsistency in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.08435/) (2021)
- [Federated Conformal Predictors for Distributed Uncertainty Quantification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.17564/) (2023)
- [Improving Fairness via Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.15545/) (2021)
- [Enforcing fairness in private federated learning via the modified method of differential multipliers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.08604/) (2021)
- [Federated Learning for Healthcare Domain - Pipeline, Applications and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.07893/) (2022)
- [Conformal Prediction for Federated Uncertainty Quantification Under Label Shift](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.05131/) (2023)
- [Minimax Demographic Group Fairness in Federated Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.08304/) (2022)
- [Bayes-Optimal Classifiers under Group Fairness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.09724/) (2022)
- [Fair Federated Learning via Bounded Group Loss](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.10190/) (2022)
- [ELSA: Efficient Label Shift Adaptation through the Lens of Semiparametric Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.19123/) (2023)
- [SimFair: A Unified Framework for Fairness-Aware Multi-Label Classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.09683/) (2023)
- [FaiREE: Fair Classification with Finite-Sample and Distribution-Free Guarantee](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.15072/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

As federated learning gains increasing importance in real-world applications due to its capacity for decentralized data training, addressing fairness concerns across demographic groups becomes critically important. However, most existing machine learning algorithms for ensuring fairness are designed for centralized data environments and generally require large-sample and distributional assumptions, underscoring the urgent need for fairness techniques adapted for decentralized and heterogeneous systems with finite-sample and distribution-free guarantees. To address this issue, this paper introduces FedFaiREE, a post-processing algorithm developed specifically for distribution-free fair learning in decentralized settings with small samples. Our approach accounts for unique challenges in decentralized environments, such as client heterogeneity, communication costs, and small sample sizes. We provide rigorous theoretical guarantees for both fairness and accuracy, and our experimental results further provide robust empirical validation for our proposed method.