Futuristic scanners identify people by hands, eyes or voice

Web posted June 17, 1997

David E. Kalish
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) - 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 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 torture-slaying of Jonathan Levin - a New York City high school teacher and son of Time Warner chief Gerald Levin - apparently for his bank card number, has emphasized the need for a better method of 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 Levin slaying, New York police theorize that his killer forced him to reveal his personal identification number by repeatedly stabbing him in the neck, then shot him and used his bank card to withdraw $800 from an ATM.

Investigators were analyzing a grainy security videotape from the ATM where the withdrawal took place. Friday, they searched for a 19-year-old suspect described as a convicted drug seller, parolee and former student of Levin's who apparently left a message on the teacher's answering machine the day police believe Levin was killed.

In an attempt to thwart such crimes, new technology uses sophisticated scanning devices to identify people, instead of bank cards and PIN numbers.

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 bank holder'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 bank holders. No match, no transaction.

An advantage of Sensar over other gadgets is that a person can stand up to three feet away from the camera to be identified, unlike technology that requires people to touch a sensor, such as fingerprint identification systems.

``You don't want to see people at ATMs having to put their finger in a hole,'' said Tom Drury, president and chief executive of Sensar. ``The real underlying issue is ease of use and related accuracy.''

Not surprisingly, sensing devices first found a market in companies and government agencies concerned about security.

The business market is growing fast. Already, companies such as Coca-Cola and American Airlines are using Recognition Systems' hand-recognition technology for some employees instead of time cards and security badges. The devices ``read'' a hand's characteristics, such as size of knuckles and width, to identify employees.

One possible bump in the road for the devices are worries among privacy groups that use of these devices will encourage a sort of Big Brother ability to monitor an individual's activities in unseen ways, eroding privacy.

``I think these technologies are really a double-edged sword,'' said David Sobel, legal counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a non-profit group based in Washington.

``There will need to be a public debate about what the right way to use these systems might be.''