Patent ID: 8264557

Claim:
An image acquisition system comprising: an image acquisition device having an image acquisition unit; a commanding device configured as a member separate from the image acquisition device to transmit a command for controlling the image acquisition device to the image acquisition device so that the image acquisition device can perform an operation corresponding to the command; and an ability switching unit configured to switch an ability to transmit/receive the command between the commanding device and the image acquisition device; wherein the command includes one of a general command not containing authentication information and an authentication command containing the authentication information, the authentication information enabling the image acquisition device to authenticate the commanding device; wherein the ability switching unit includes a command transmission/reception ability switching unit configured to reduce the command transmission/reception ability for the authentication command as compared with the command transmission/reception ability for the general command; wherein the image acquisition device includes: a command reception unit configured to receive the command transmitted from the commanding device; an authentication information recognition unit configured to recognize the authentication information contained in the authentication command received by the command reception unit; and a function limiting unit configured to limit a predetermined function of the image acquisition device based on the authentication information recognized by the authentication information recognition unit; wherein the authentication information recognition unit of the image acquisition device further includes a command determination unit configured to determine a content of the authentication command received by the command reception unit; wherein the image acquisition device further includes a mode setting unit configured to, in a case in which the content of the authentication command received by the command reception unit is an authentication mode switching command for limiting the function of the image acquisition device, set an authentication mode of the image acquisition device in accordance with the authentication mode switching command, and wherein the function limiting unit of the image acquisition device limits the function of the image acquisition device in accordance with the authentication mode set by the mode setting unit.