In this paper, a secure face recognition system is presented, in which face detection is performed with skin color detection followed by light normalization and normalized cross correlation. Principal component analysis (PCA) is used for face verification. Due to the rising concern about the security and privacy of the biometric system, we offer a secure storage for user records by encrypting them using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). A different encryption/ decryption key is used for each user, and that key is not stored in the database, it is extracted by expanding the submitted user identification (ID). A simulation of AES algorithm using field programmable gate array (FPGA) and the very high speed integrated circuit hardware description language (VHDL) is performed.