Utility-Preserving Federated Graph Learning With Dual-Perspective Fairness

Fairness-aware federated graph neural networks (FedGNNs) necessitate consideration of both the server and the clients. However, fairness-aware methods struggle to enhance dual-perspective (i.e., server and clients) fairness without sacrificing utility due to the distributed learning framework. As a consequence, the utility sacrifices of fairness-aware graph learning methods are even exacerbated in federated frameworks. In this work we propose F3GL, a dual-perspective fairness federated graph learning method that enhances both global (for the server) and local fairness (for clients) while preserving utility. Through theoretical analysis, we delineate the similarity between original sensitive features and those after convolution under different spectra. Our findings reveal that only the principal eigenvalue contributes to enhancing this similarity. Moreover, our theoretical analysis applies universally to both clients and servers. Specifically, employing a specialized eigenvalue selection strategy allows for effective optimization of both local and global fairness. Drawing on these insights, we improve dual-perspective fairness through the lens of spectral graph theory without sacrificing utility. Experimental results on two real-world datasets show the superiority of F3GL over existing baselines.