In its brief blog post, Amazon said it had “advocated governments should put in place stronger regulations to govern the ethical use of facial recognition technology, and in recent days, Congress appears ready to take on this challenge.

Michael Connor, executive director of Open MIC, a non-profit that works with shareholders to foster corporate accountability in the tech sector, welcomed the news after years of shareholders’ organising to push Amazon to end what was described as "sales of harmful, unregulated technology to police”.

“But it’s only a temporary moratorium, and it doesn’t address deeper concerns that shareholders have regarding Amazon’s role in a rapidly-developing surveillance economy,” he said.