Amazon has been accused of fuelling a surveillance culture that threatens civil liberties in the US by selling its facial-recognition systems to law enforcement agencies.

Forty-one rights groups, privacy campaigners and other organisations have signed a letter to Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, expressing “profound concerns” about the technology, called Rekognition and warning him that it “is primed for abuse in the hands of governments”.

The online retailer has been quietly offering the program, which uses artificial intelligence to identify people, scenes and objects in images and video, to police forces and sheriff’s departments for over a year. Supporters see it as a powerful tool for catching criminals or finding missing children.

Opponents, however, see the technology as a gateway to mass government surveillance