Patent ID: 8379936

Claim:
An authentication apparatus comprising: a memory, the memory having authenticated biometric information of a user to be authenticated stored therein; an acquiring section that acquires first biometric authentication information of the user and second biometric authentication information of the user by different methods and different reader sections; a processor that controls the acquiring section to acquire the first biometric authentication information and the second biometric authentication information, and the processor executing instructions that cause the authentication apparatus to function as: an authenticating section that compares the first biometric authentication information to the authenticated biometric information, authenticates the first biometric authentication information based on a result of the comparing, and sets the authenticated first biometric authentication information as reference biometric authentication information; and a discriminating section that determines a degree of similarity between the reference biometric authentication information and the second biometric authentication information, and rejects authentication of the user in response to determining that the degree of similarity exceeds a prescribed degree of similarity, wherein a false rejection rate (FRR) of a first authentication range between the first biometric authentication information and the authenticated biometric authentication information is lower than an FRR of a second authentication range between the second biometric authentication information and the reference biometric authentication information, and a false acceptance rate (FAR) of the first authentication range between the first biometric authentication information and the authenticated biometric authentication information is higher than an FAR of the second authentication range between the second biometric authentication information and the reference biometric authentication information, the FRR showing a rejection rate falsely rejecting the user and the FAR showing an acceptance rate falsely accepting another user different from the user.