A fingerprint recognition method and apparatus, and a touchscreen terminal with a fingerprint recognition module includes, when a fingerprint authentication module is in a disabled state, a touch operation used to trigger an application program is received, if fingerprint authentication is not required for execution of the application program, the fingerprint recognition module is kept in a disabled state, and after the application program has been executed for specific duration, the fingerprint authentication module is enabled again, to perform the fingerprint authentication.