An optoelectronic safety sensor (10) is set forth for the contactless measurement of paths and/or speeds of the safety sensor (10) or of a first object connected in a fixed position to the safety sensor (10) with respect to a second object (12) moved relatively to the first object, which form a potential source of danger, wherein the safety sensor (10) has a light source (20), a light receiver (16) with a plurality of light reception elements and has an evaluation unit (22), with the evaluation unit (22) being configured to determine by means of an optical correlation process and/or by evaluation of the optical flow the path and/or the speed from at least two images of a surface structure (18, 18a, 18b) of the second object (12) taken sequentially by the light receiver (22). In this respect, the evaluation unit (22) is further configured to evaluate the quality of the determined path and/or of the determined speed, and a safety output (24) is provided via which the evaluation signal (22) can output a shutdown signal or brake signal to secure the danger source when a required quality is not reached.