This invention provides a technique which can enhance personal recognition precision in personal recognition processing of a face in an image. To this end, a management unit classifies feature patterns each including feature information of a plurality of parts of a face region of an object extracted from image data, and manages the feature patterns using a dictionary. A segmenting unit determines whether or not feature information of each part of the face region of the object is segmented, and segments the feature information of the part of interest into a plurality of feature information as new feature information. A registration unit registers a feature pattern as a combination of the new feature information of the part of interest and feature information of parts other than the part of interest in the dictionary as a new feature pattern of the object.