Facial recognition helped the US Marshals Service to identify a military fugitive who escaped federal prison in 1977 (Fox News)
As far as biometric modalities go, the durability of facial recognition has been the easiest to test. Scientists have had access photos of known individuals taken over long periods of time stretching back to the days of Abraham Lincoln.
Still, this real world example illustrates that facial recognition biometrics are useful even over very long time periods even without frequent database updates.