zlacker

It is not clear to me that the person who identified him was shop owner or clerk. From the nyt article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/technology/facial-recogni...

"The Shinola shoplifting occurred in October 2018. Katherine Johnston, an investigator at Mackinac Partners, a loss prevention firm, reviewed the store’s surveillance video and sent a copy to the Detroit police"

"In this case, however, according to the Detroit police report, investigators simply included Mr. Williams’s picture in a “6-pack photo lineup” they created and showed to Ms. Johnston, Shinola’s loss-prevention contractor, and she identified him. (Ms. Johnston declined to comment.)"

>>busine+(OP)
I think you're correct that the person was not an owner or clerk. IMHO the salient point is that the person was not any sort of eyewitness but merely comparing the same grainy photo as the algorithm.

>>ghostp+Ct
More importantly, the person wasn't an eyewitness, and the 6-pack photo array was window dressing to make the outside technician appear to be an eyewitness.