Patent ID: 7239725

Claim:
A face image recognition apparatus which recognizes a person based on a face image, comprising: a key input section which permits a to-be-recognized person to input his own identification information, an image input section which is disposed inside said key input section and inputs a face image of a to-be-recognized person, an illuminating section which applies light toward at least a face of the to-be-recognized person, a feature amount extracting section which extracts a feature amount of the face of the to-be-recognized person based on the face image input by said image input section, a feature amount registration section in which a reference feature amount is previously registered in correspondence to identification information of the to-be-recognized person, and a recognition section which recognizes the face image of the to-be-recognized person by acquiring a reference feature amount corresponding to identification information input by use of said key input section from said feature amount registration section based on the identification information and collating the thus acquired reference feature amount with a feature amount extracted by said feature amount extracting section, wherein said illuminating section includes a first illuminating section which is disposed on the upper right side or upper left side of said image input section as viewed from the to-be-recognized person and applies light toward at least the face of the to-be-recognized person and a second illuminating section which is disposed below said image input section as viewed from the to-be-recognized person and applies light toward at least the face of the to-be-recognized person, and an illuminance of light from the first illuminating section and an illuminance of light from the second illuminating section are different, wherein the illuminance of light from the first illuminating section is greater than the illuminance of light from the second illuminating section.