INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS AND METHOD

An information processing apparatus includes a measurement unit that measures environmental information about an environment surrounding the information processing apparatus; a reception unit that receives environmental information from an external device or a device associated with the external device in response to receiving a processing request from the external device; a comparison unit that compares the environmental information measured by the measurement unit with the environmental information received by the reception unit; and a processing unit that executes a process based on the received processing request in a case where the environmental information received by the reception unit and the environmental information measured by the measurement unit that are compared by the comparison unit are determined to be measured in a same environment.