

Don’t know about most places but regarding Germany, OP is correct. It’s verboten to film property of neighbours, public places or places shared with neighbours with your statically installed surveillance camera. You have to get consent of filming neighbours and you have to put up signs informing persons like delivery drivers that they’re getting filmed. That’s what my short search resulted in.
A recent famous case that comes to mind is when some independent researchers found an ex-RAF terrorist on the run (or call her whatever your political inclination suits) via facial recognition of photos on social media of a capobeira club. I assume the reference material were some age old photos as she was on the run for decades.
I don’t know much about facial recognition but I only heard it works damn well and considering OS and phone manufacturers employing it and are confident enough to not have their users locked out or compromise security let’s me assume that it works damn well.