An extraction process includes the steps of carrying out a geometric transformation on a picture being inspected to transform the size of the picture being inspected into a reduced scale of an original picture; creating a plurality of degraded original pictures with different types each obtained as a result of degradation of the original picture; creating a plurality of differential pictures by subtraction of the degraded original pictures with different types from the picture being inspected with a transformed size to cancel degradation components in the picture being inspected with a transformed size; and extracting the information corresponding to the authentication information.