Efforts by Amazon to sell its Rekognition facial recognition system to US law enforcement agencies provoked a strong backlash from Amazon employees, investors and rights advocates. 

In May 2018, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) found that Amazon had been actively marketing Rekognition to police departments and government agencies across the US, pointing out civil liberties concerns and the ease with which the technology can be misused. 

A month later, the ACLU delivered a petition with over 150,000 signatures to Amazon headquarters, alongside a coalition letter signed by nearly 70 digital rights organisations. 

The same day, 19 investor groups warned then Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos that the technology 'may not only pose a privacy threat to customers and other stakeholders across the country, but may also raise substantial risks for our Company, negatively impacting our company’s stock valuation and increasing financial risk for shareholders.'