1. An image compression device comprising: an image division unit to divide an image into a plurality of regions; a region designation unit to desigate a region of interest in the image; a quantization rate determination unit to determine a quantization rate with respect to each of the regions divided by the image division unit; and a compression control unit to control compression with respect to each of the regions based on the quantization rate determined by the quantization rate determination unit, wherein the quantization rate determination unit is operable to determine the quantization rate for the region of interest different from the quantization rate for the regions other than the region of interest.