The invention discloses an access control method. The access control method comprises the following steps: acquiring a movement locus of people, and predicting the movement trend of people according to the movement locus, wherein the movement trend includes a movement direction trend; when the movement direction trend directs to an access controller and the distance from people to the access controller is smaller than a first preset distance, starting the access controller. According to the method, the movement trend of people is predicted according to the movement locus of people, the movement trend includes a movement direction trend reflecting the direction intention of people, when the movement direction trend directs to the access controller, people have the intention of entering theaccess controller, meanwhile, the distance from people to the access controller is detected and if the distance from people to the access controller is smaller than the first preset distance, the access controller is controlled to be automatically started, so that the human operation is not required, people can directly enter or exit accessibly through the access controller, and the situations that a large number of time is wasted for entering or exiting the access controller when the pedestrian volume is large is avoided and the user experience is not influenced are solved. The invention further discloses an access control device.