To facilitate management and to easily and speedily identify identity concerning a method and a device for identifying identity to be used for identifying the identity at a bank or public office, for example.

Concerning this identity identifying method, the fingerprint data of a user himself are previously recorded on a card, the fingerprint of a person carrying that card is read by a fingerprint reading means, the fingerprint data read by that fingerprint reading means are collated with the fingerprint data recorded on the card and the identity is discriminated. This device is provided with a card data reading means 4 for reading the fingerprint data of the user himself recorded on the card beforehand, for example, fingerprint data reading means 5 for reading the fingerprint of the person carrying that card, and fingerprint collating means 6 for collating the fingerprint data read by that fingerprint data reading means with the fingerprint data read by the card data reading means and discriminating whether these data are coincident or not.