CUSTOMER SAFETY IN BLINK OF AN EYE; HIGH-TECH ATM SCANS IRIS TO IDENTIFY BANK CLIENTS.

Byline: David E. Kalish Associated Press 

Forgot your bank card? No sweat. The automated teller machine pans a camera across your eyeballs to verify your identity. Checking out of work? Just press your palm on the surface and your hours are clocked.

What sounds like high-tech fantasy is starting to show up in real life, giving rise to a new class of futuristic gadgets that can scan a person's eyes, hands or voice and instantly verify the person's identity.

Among other uses, the ``biometric identity'' devices are being tested in automated teller machines as a substitute for plastic bank cards and personal identification numbers.

The trend is driven by improvements in technology that are pushing down costs, as well as by heightened fears about security. Indeed, the recent slaying of the son of Time Warner's chief executive officer, apparently for his bank card number, has emphasized the need for a better method for screening bank account holders.

``I think it's going to make people think a little bit more about security,'' said Erik Bowman, an industry analyst with Personal Identification News, an industry newsletter.

``Biometrics is a way to solve that.''

Demand for the scanning devices, while still small, is growing rapidly. Up to $25 million in biometric identity devices are expected to be sold this year, up 45 percent from 1996, according to Personal Identification News. That is expected to double by 1999.

A variety of factors are at work. Improvements in technology are driving down prices for the devices, making them more affordable to banks and other security-conscious businesses. And word is spreading about the benefits at a time of heightened concern about flaws in traditional methods such as ATM bank cards.

In the latest incident, an assailant apparently shot Jonathan Levin, son of Time Warner chief Gerald Levin, and used the high school teacher's bank card to withdraw $800 from an automated teller machine, presumably using Levin's personal identification number.

New technology that uses sophisticated scanning devices to identify people, instead of bank cards and PIN numbers, is aimed at thwarting such crimes.

Currently being tested by Citicorp and other banks is a gadget developed by Sensar Inc., that enables an ATM to read a person's iris to verify their identity.

Sensar's IrisIdent system uses special cameras to scan the customer's face. A computer processes the image and reduces its components to digital code, figuring out which part of the face is actually the iris. The code for the iris and all its unique physical characteristics - representing everything from color to tiny indentations in the tissue - is matched against a database of codes for all customers. No match, no transaction.

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BOX: ATM SCANNERS