UNITED STATES — On Wednesday, June 10, Jeff Bezos and Amazon announced that they will pause police use of its facial recognition technology. The announcement made it clear that the pause would be for one year.

“We’ve advocated that 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. We hope this one-year moratorium might give Congress enough time to implement appropriate rules, and we stand ready to help if requested.”

The company did not elaborate on other specifics or give a reason for the halt. Amazon has long been criticized for selling technology to government agencies from civil rights and immigration advocacy groups. The company will still allow the technology to be used by organizations such as the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Amazon’s facial recognition technology could be used to invade people’s right of privacy. The facial-analysis system is called Rekognition, has a history of making mistakes, including categorizing Oprah Winfrey as a male. The systems mugshot database has also made errors such as wrongly matching headshots of 28 members of Congress.