An apparatus for the acquisition of items of identity information (19/31), in particular for the measurement of sport time and/or for monitoring and possibly invoicing in the course of access checks or operations involving transportation of material, is to be designed to be as manipulation-resistant as possible. For that purpose a distinction is made between local acquisition regions, in each of which is installed at least one reading device (22), and at least one central processing region which is operated separately therefrom and under special control and at which an evaluation device (43) is operated. The transfer of data between the acquisition region and the processing region is effected so-to-speak `physically` by means of an operating device (30) which can only be connected either to the reading device (22) or to the evaluation device (43). The items of identity information (19) which are received in encoded form by way of the reading device (22) and which are called up therefrom in encoded form again by the operating device (30) are linked at the time of their reception with an item of real-time information (27) from an autonomous internal clock circuit (28). The latter is checked at certain intervals by means of a radio controlled clock with reference to the statutory time and if necessary corrected. If the correction value exceeds a certain magnitude, then that is additionally protocoled because the cause of the time correction may be an operational defect in the clock circuit (28) or an external manipulation of the radio telegram received by the time receiver (29).