The invention discloses a face recognition method based on an intelligent card, which comprises the following steps: acquiring and transmitting face data; judging the quality of the face data; adjusting the brightness for the face data with qualified quality; extracting face features, and transmitting the face features to the intelligent card by an encrypted way; and comparing the face images, anddetermining whether the identification passes or not. The invention also discloses a face recognition system which comprises a face detection module, a data safety communication module, a face imagequality judging module, a face image brightness adjusting module, a face feature extracting module and a face verification module. By adopting the system and the method of the invention, the defect ofthe reduction of the recognition effect caused by attitude deviation is eliminated, and the recognition rate is greatly improved. In addition, in the process of comparing the face images, the writingspeed, the reading speed and the operating speed of the compressed face image data are quick, thereby meeting the requirements of various real-time application conditions.