According to an embodiment, a facial recognition system includes an image sensor, a facial recognition processing unit, a heart rate detection unit, and an authentication unit. The image sensor detects incident light by an infrared pixel, and outputs detected infrared information. The facial recognition processing unit recognizes the face of a person based on image information signal captured by the image sensor. The heart rate detection unit reads the heart rate of the person from pulses in a blood vessel in the face based on the infrared information. The authentication unit receives facial recognition signal outputted from the facial recognition processing unit. The authentication unit authenticates the person as an identical person when the heart rate is inputted, and authenticates the person as a photograph when the heart rate is not inputted.
