To prevent sensitivity-of a camera from saturated by a light generated from lighting reflected on the iris by providing a luminous energy adjustment means which makes the luminous energy variable in a place where the person to be discriminated is present in a device for picking up the iris of a person to be discriminated by a camera and recognize the person to be discriminated from its image data.

In the case of installing an iris recognition system in an ATM (automated teller machine), when a customer 33 approaches in front of the ATM 1 and an approach detector 17 detects the customer 33, a photographing instruction is issued to an image photographing part 13. When the image photographing part 13 collects the surrounding moving image data and judges it to be a human body, the image processing part 13 extracts the face of the customer 33, the positions of the eyes are specified, and a camera 13a is zoomed up so as to photograph the iris. When the approval information of aquisition of the iris data is received, the lighting 32 is turned off for approximately 0.5 second, and then the iris data is obtained in such a state as eliminating the lighting 32 from reflected on the pupil of the customer 33. This iris data is compared to the image data of the iris read from the ID number of an ID card so that the propriety of the customer is judged.