An improvement of a face recognition method is proposed. The goal is to develop easy-to-use access control software, allowing personal-computer or building access control with minimal constraints for the users. This approach requires a high-speed classification method (about 8 images/s) and a high global recognition rate. We obtain good results using a method derived from principal-component analysis, a geometric transformation of the feature space, and a fast decision algorithm. (C) 2001 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.