MONITORING SYSTEM, MONITORING DEVICE, AND MONITORING METHOD

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a monitoring system without needs to focus the photographing range of a camera onto a figure of interest only, and capable of protecting privacy of figures other than the a figure of interest. SOLUTION: A data center 105 inputs a captured image photographed when a figure of interest holding a wireless IC tag 125 passes near the photographing apparatus 101, and detects a face segment as a specific area out of the captured image using a face segment detecting device 107. In addition, the amount of face features is acquired for the figure of interest registered at a data base 110 based on an individual identification information obtained from the wireless IC tag 125 by a face identifying device 108, and a face segment matched with the figure of interest is identified among the detected face segments. Then, face segments other than the identified face segment of the figure of interest are masked by a masking device 109 to generate a masked image, the masked image is associated with the individual identification information by image data management device 106, and it is held for public presentation. If there is a browsing request from a browsing terminal 111, a masked image corresponding to an authenticated individual identification information is transmitted. COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT