Patent ID: 7158038

Claim:
A monitoring system comprising: an identification tag capable of storing identification data used for identification of an authorized person and transmitting the identification data; sensing means, disposed in a plurality of previously selected locations, for sensing a person moving close to the locations; receiving means, disposed in the same locations as the sensing means, for receiving the identification data transmitted from the identification tag; cameras, disposed in the same locations as the sensing means, for capturing the image of the person sensed by the sensing means; processing means for storing, as reference data, a normal pattern of movement behavior of an authorized person, who has been previously identified by his/her own identification tag, usually moving between the plurality of previously selected locations, comparing behavior data relating to the person and produced based on information acquired by the receiving means and sensing means to the reference data, and if the result of the comparison does not indicate the existence of a difference therebetween, outputting no image data and if the result indicates the existence of the difference, outputting image data relating to the person; delivery means for delivering the image data output from the processing means to a monitoring device; and alerting means for sending an alert in response to the outputting of the image data from the processing means.