AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY | Abortion & Consumer Data Privacy at AMERICAN EXPRESS COMPANY

Status
11.53% votes in favour
AGM date
Proposal number
6
Resolution details
Company ticker
AXP
Lead filer
Change Finance, PBC.
Resolution ask
Report on or disclose
ESG theme
  • Social
ESG sub-theme
  • Digital rights
  • Public health
Type of vote
Shareholder proposal
Filer type
Shareholder
Company sector
Financials
Company HQ country
United States
Resolved clause
RESOLVED: Shareholders request that our Board issue a public report detailing any known and potential risks and costs to the
Company of fulfilling information requests regarding American Express customers for the enforcement of state laws criminalizing
abortion access, and setting forth any strategies beyond legal compliance that the Company may deploy to minimize or mitigate
these risks.
The report should be produced at reasonable expense, exclude proprietary or legally privileged information, and be published no later
than September 1, 2024.
Whereas clause
WHEREAS: Following the revocation of the constitutional right to an abortion in June 2022, policymakers and legislators have
become alarmed by the use of personal digital data for the enforcement of state laws that ban or limit abortion access. Congress is
considering bills that would increase privacy protections for personal reproductive health information. California now requires
out-of-state law enforcement seeking personal data from California corporations to attest that the investigation does not involve any
crime related to an abortion that is lawful under California law.
Law enforcement frequently relies on digital consumer data. While American Express does not publicly report figures on its
compliance with law enforcement requests, Alphabet and Meta alone collectively received around 110,000 requests in the second
half of 2021, and each complied with about 80% of those requests. In 2022, Meta satisfied a Nebraska police warrant for private
Facebook messages from a defendant facing felony charges for allegedly helping her daughter terminate a pregnancy.
Financial institutions collect sensitive personal information such as geolocation data, browsing history and financial activity. There is
reason for concern that such data will be accessed without consumer consent by states that criminalize abortion. Indeed, the
American Express Privacy Statement declares that the Company “may share [p]ersonal [i]nformation as require[d] or as permitted
by law, with . . . governmental agencies to comply with . . . government requests.” However, such law enforcement requests may seek
evidence of consumer acts that are inappropriate for the bank to voluntarily share—for example, evidence of a customer’s financial
activities that were legal in the state where they occurred, such as purchasing abortion pills.
Since American Express collects and stores digital consumer data, the Company is not immune to abortion-related law enforcement
requests that may create significant reputational, financial, and legal risks. American Express is already complying with “deletion
rights’’ under California law, wherein consumers may request that the Company delete collected personal data that is not legally
required to retain. Accordingly, there is a strong market benefit to upholding and increasing longstanding consumer privacy
Supporting statement
SUPPORTING STATEMENT: Shareholders recommend that the report, in the discretion of board and management, should:
1. Consider the implementation of a data privacy policy wherein consumers nationwide would have “deletion rights,” and would
be notified by the Company about any law enforcement information requests regarding their data prior to complying with
any such request; and,
2. Reflect the input or participation of reproductive rights and civil liberties organizations.

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