[blato]

"Merchants should be able to hire humans that sit around looking at camera screens all day trying to find shopping patterns, shoplifters, etc."

There is no identification part in what you describe. Generic stats (how many person in the queue, etc.) are okay.

The issue is not facial detection but facial recognition.

They stored model of faces associated with data which mean they could point a camera at anyone in the street anywhere in the world and find back what is the data associated with that person.

Hiring humans would not result in creating and storing models of faces

[umvi]

You're telling me humans can't recognize faces? Consider a security guard who sits at the entrance to a store and watches people come in. What are the chances he would facially recognize a repeat shoplifting offender?