FACE AUTHENTIFICATION DEVICE, PERSON IMAGE SEARCH SYSTEM, FACE AUTHENTIFICATION DEVICE CONTROL PROGRAM, COMPUTER READABLE RECORDING MEDIUM, AND METHOD OF CONTROLLING FACE AUTHENTIFICATION DEVICE
The present invention further improves an accuracy of face authentication procedure without need for any special video equipment and others. In a face authentication apparatus (100) including a face verifying section (56) that determines degrees of similarity between incoming input face image data and a plurality of registered facial characteristics information items that have been preregistered, and then extracts the registered facial characteristics information item having the degree of similarity to the input face image data of not less than a predetermined value, the registered facial information items are respectively registered together with registered attribute information items on persons related to the registered facial characteristics information items, and the face authentication apparatus (100) further includes: a face authentication section (50) that identifies which of the plurality of registered facial characteristics information items that have been extracted by the face verifying section (56) is the registered facial characteristics information item containing a person related to the input face image data, the face authentication section (50) includes: a gender/age estimating section (54) that estimates an attribute of the person related to the input face image data and then outputs an attribute information item and a gender/age comparing section (58) that makes comparison between the attribute information item thus outputted and the registered attribute information items corresponding to the plurality of registered facial characteristics information items, whereby the registered facial information item is identified on a basis of a result of the comparison.