PURPOSE: To provide an inspection apparatus whose constitution is extremely simple and which can judge the identity of an object to be inspected at a high speed and by a simple processing operation.

CONSTITUTION: An imaging device 3 provided with an image guide in which optical fibers are arranged regularly is used, a picture element which is formed by the optical fibers is read out as a unit of image information by an image- information readout part 5, and the picture element is stored temporarily. On the other hand, identity-judgment-criterion information is stored in a judgmentcriterion-information storage part 7 in advance at every unit of the image information, the criterion information is compared by a comparison and collation part 8 at every unit, and identity or approximateness is judged by a judgment part 9 on the basis of a compared result. In this manner, without using a complicated image processing technique in which an inspection region is divided and cut off so as to recognize a pattern, the identity of an object to be inspected can be judged by a processing operation in which every unit of information is compared and collated and which is simple and does not require the processing time comparatively.