The FACTS of Technology-Assisted Sensitivity Review

At least ninety countries implement Freedom of Information laws that state that government documents must be made freely available, or opened, to the public. However, many government documents contain sensitive information, such as personal or confidential information. Therefore, all government documents that are opened to the public must first be reviewed to identify, and protect, any sensitive information. Historically, sensitivity review has been a completely manual process. However, with the adoption of born-digital documents, such as e-mail, human-only sensitivity review is not practical and there is a need for new technologies to assist human sensitivity reviewers. In this paper, we discuss how issues of fairness, accountability, confidentiality, transparency and safety (FACTS) impact technology-assisted sensitivity review. Moreover, we outline some important areas of future FACTS research that will need to be addressed within technology-assisted sensitivity review.