A driver's appearance recognition system comprises: a camera to capture a driver's face image; a near infrared ray LED to radiate near infrared ray to the driver's face; an LED current control circuit to control the amount of current supplied to the near infrared ray LED; and an image processing circuit to execute an individual authentication process and a closed-eye detection process. When the individual authentication process is executed, it is necessary to increase the illumination intensity during image capture by the camera. For this purpose, a setup current value for the LED current control circuit is set to a high current value. When the closed-eye detection process is executed, the illumination intensity needs to be ensured as much as required for the closed-eye detection process. For this purpose, a setup current value is set to a current value lower than that used for execution of the individual authentication process.