The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for identifying a living eye, in which IR LED lighting and lighting for varying the ambient illumination are installed on the front surface or one side of an iris recognition camera so as to determine whether an iris of an eye is an iris of a living eye when capturing an iris image by the iris recognition camera, using one or more criteria of whether the ratio of the sizes of the iris and pupil changes by the variation of the ambient illumination, whether the number or location of the IR LEDs focused on the iris and/or the pupil changes, whether the region of the iris image changes by eye blinking, and whether the direction of the gaze changes.
