The present invention is to protect the right of portrait or privacy of
people other than a specific person, and to enable easy recognition of
information other than the face of the specific person and the situation
around the specific person. Images videotaped by the surveillance cameras
are captured in the computer, face images are detected therefrom, and the
detected face images are compared with the face image of a specific
person registered in the storage device. As the results of the
comparison, when these face images do not match with each other, a mosaic
process is applied exclusively to the detected face images to protect the
privacy of the people other than the specific person, whereas the mosaic
process is not applied to the parts other than the faces, such as dress
and baggage, thereby keeping them as they are. When these face images
match with each other, the face image of the specific person is not
applied with the mosaic process, thereby keeping his or her face and
remaining parts as they are.