A personal authentication device comprising one or a plurality of irradiating means that expand a near-infrared laser beam and irradiate the ocular fundus, light-receiving means that has a large number of pixels and receives light reflected from retinal blood vessels of the ocular fundus and a blood vessel layer in ocular fundus internal tissue, storage means that stores the output of each of the pixels obtained by the light-receiving means, calculating means that calculates a quantity representing the rate of change with respect to time of the amount of light received for each pixel using stored contents of the storage means, second storage means that stores a two-dimensional distribution of the calculation results obtained for each of the pixels as a blood flow map, means for extracting at least one, observed in the blood flow map stored by the second storage means, of blood flow distribution data, a pattern reflecting the course of retinal blood vessels, a pattern, observed superimposed thereon, reflecting the course of blood vessels in ocular fundus internal tissue, and data on changes thereof over time, and means for comparing and judging the extracted data against pre-registered personal data.