Is shareholder involvement in fossil fuel annual general meetings transitioning towards a period of decline?
In recent years, annual general meetings (AGMs) of major London-listed fossil fuel companies like Shell and BP have been under scrutiny for their security measures, particularly the use of facial recognition technology.
While there is no public confirmation of facial recognition usage at these AGMs, companies like Shell and BP have been observed to employ advanced security technologies as part of their corporate governance and event security frameworks. These measures are aimed at verifying attendee identity and streamlining registration processes, leveraging high-accuracy AI systems.
At the 2024 Shell AGM, personal security guards were assigned to attendees, including one who followed a shareholder to the toilet twice. A colleague was refused entry to the same AGM for carrying a single-page leaflet, despite being a known shareholder who had engaged constructively with the company.
At BP's AGMs, attendees have been subjected to personal searches, data collection, and confiscation of items deemed contraband. In 2025, facial recognition technology was used at the BP AGM, and it appeared to have matched colleagues to footage from the 2024 Shell AGM, where they had merely asked questions from the floor.
The use of facial recognition technology raises concerns about data privacy and retention. Questions have been raised about who holds the biometric and behavioral data collected at AGMs, for how long it is retained, under what legal basis it is shared between clients, and if it is sold or shared with third parties, including foreign governments or border agencies.
Moreover, the aggressive security measures have been criticised for limiting shareholder participation. At BP's 2025 AGM on the outskirts of London, the main auditorium was stated to be at capacity, leaving attendees in an overflow area with limited participation. Spontaneous questions were disallowed during the BP 2023 AGM, and a one-hour cap for questions was imposed at the 2023 AGM, which is unprecedented in the speaker's experience. Question bundling was also implemented, where each attendee was required to ask multiple, unrelated questions in a single go.
During the Q&A sessions, climate-aware directors like Dame Amanda Blanc at BP have been addressed but have provided pre-prepared statements that did not mention climate change. The majority of questions at the BP 2023 AGM were dedicated to pension complaints, with only a few touching on climate strategy and governance.
As privacy regulations such as the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in the UK and EU come into play, firms must adhere to strict data retention and consent requirements when collecting biometric data. Current best practice for facial recognition at corporate events involves using high-accuracy AI-driven facial recognition systems for secure and non-intrusive identity verification, implementing robust data protection and minimal retention policies, and providing clear disclosures and obtaining attendee consent for biometric data processing in line with UK/EU standards.
However, the exact adoption of facial recognition by Shell and BP at their AGMs remains unconfirmed, and the specifics of their data retention policies are not publicly available. This remains an area where company-specific privacy policies and security protocols would govern practice but are not externally documented.
The controversies surrounding the security measures at Shell and BP AGMs continue to raise concerns about privacy, data retention, and shareholder participation. As these companies navigate the complexities of modern security technologies, transparency and adherence to privacy regulations will be crucial in maintaining the trust of their shareholders and the public.
[1] Facial recognition accuracy: https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.05386 [3] Paravision’s Gen 7 Face Recognition: https://www.paravision.ai/gen7-face-recognition/
In the context of corporate governance and event security, both Shell and BP have incorporated advanced technologies for verification purposes, including energy-efficient AI systems in their security frameworks. The use of high-accuracy AI facial recognition technology, such as Paravision's Gen 7 Face Recognition, in the industry could raise questions about data privacy, retention, and consent, particularly with regards to shareholder participation in business and financial matters.
