Authentication, not authorization is the process of verifying a user's credentials.
The difference between authentication and authorization is:
* Authentication is proving your identity, proving that you are who you say you are. The most common example of this is logging in to a system by providing credentials such as a username and password.
* Authorization is what you're allowed to do once you've been authenticated. For example, what resources you're allowed to access and what you can do with those resources.