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SALT LAKE CITY — Several apps allow people to take a picture of a key, send it to a company and get a new key made. Is that a convenience or an invitation to thieves?
Bruce Behm is the general manager at Glen's Lock and Key and he warns that within a couple of minutes anyone can have a copy of someone’s house key.
“Anyone can take a picture of a key — a friend or an ex-spouse or anything — and potentially get a key made for it,” he said.
KSL showed Behm how the Key Me app, for example, works by scanning one side of a key, then flipping it over to scan the other side. KSL paid $9.95 for locksmith instructions so Behm could make a copy without using the original key. A few minutes later, the app spit out what's called a bitting code.
“Every manufacturer has what’s called depth and space,” Behm explained. “Each cut goes into a particular space on the key, across the key, and they have a certain number of depths. In this case there are seven depths, one through seven, one being at the top on a blank key and seven being the deepest cut.”
All Behm needed to do was enter the code into his key-cutting machine.
“So here’s my key blank, lock it into the machine, set this for a Kwikset brand of lock, go ahead and put those cuts in,” he said. “That’s it. I buff it off, and we’ll go ahead and try it.”
It worked. Behm successfully duplicated a key from a photo. So would he do this if someone walked in off the street with an app like this?
“I would not,” he said. “I believe it’s really scary for what reason they would have for me to cut that key without actually having the key in their possession.”
The company behind the app KSL points out users must take a photo of both sides of the key, and it must be laid flat on a white background. This eliminates opportunities for thieves using the app to snap a quick picture of keys on a restaurant table or bar while the key’s owner is not looking, the company said.
However, Behm said an experienced and unethical locksmith possibly can cut a duplicate based on one quick photo of the original, with or without an app. It's illegal to duplicate those keys.
Behm said a high-security lock system can help.
