Rumor has it crimes have been solved in the distant past even without the aid of cameras, however cameras should give fair aid.

Just look at this picture. You have a man standing beside a known structure. You can get his height from that fact, eliminate those too tall or too short. Skin color eliminates most races. Hair style, hat style (changeable but often unchanged), approximate weight are all in the picture. People who do this often would know to look for things which might not even occur to me such as the fact that the thief seems to be right handed or even his (male) posture. Every visible fact eliminates everybody who doesn’t fit that part of the picture. You can eliminate people who lived too far away to be there at the time (French, Belgians, Russians, et cetera–other than those visiting). As you eliminate everybody who it can’t be, you zero in on who it MUST be.

If what they COULD see were to give them reasonable suspicion whoever they suspected was the one who did the crime, then they could request a search warrant and if the judge were convinced, they could find concrete evidence. That requires the image to be reasonably identifying, the workers be interested enough to pursue and the judge convinced it was worth following up. Drop the ball at any point and the case is just one of suspicion.

David considering the
legal and technical problem
and opportunity