Even if an image processing apparatus which can recognize a certain character string is available on the network, processing results of an OCR process are determined by character recognition ability of an image processing apparatus which has happened to perform the OCR process. Thus, after an MFP performs a character recognition process based on image data contained in a character region of an image, if it is determined that processing results of the character recognition process are highly likely to contain recognition errors, the processing results are output to another MFP together with first information which indicates a high likelihood of the processing results containing recognition errors. Upon acquiring the processing results, the other MFP with higher character recognition capabilities performs a character recognition process on the image data contained in the character region if the first information is attached.