PURPOSE: To monitor an illegal intruder or the like at the time of absence.

CONSTITUTION: In a monitor mode, the photographic picture signal of a camera 10 is inputted through circuits 14 and 20 to a picture encoding circuit 22a. A movement monitoring circuit 42 stores motion vectors detected in the encoding circuit 22a along plural frames, discriminates the size and frequency of the movement of a picture, compares the discriminated result with a preliminarily set threshold value, and outputs a movement detection signal to an automatic transmission control circuit 46 when the discriminated result is more than the threshold value. The circuit 46 reads a transmission destination number stored in a transmission destination number storage circuit 44 in response to the movement detection signal from the circuit 42, and instructs a system control circuit 38 to perform automatic transmission to the pertinent transmission destination number. The system control circuit 38 transmits an alarm voice stored in an alarm voice storage circuit 48 to the connected other party after a line is connected, and transmits the input picture and an input voice.