High Security Locking Gives Key Control Bonus

High security locks often protect the security of a building internally as much as externally. Although high security cylinders were first conceived to withstand picking and drilling, they often make a much bigger contribution to security within a building, through their impact on key control.
Standard keys, although easily duplicated, still prevent most outsiders from unauthorized entry. However, lax key controls often leave the door wide open for internal theft or misuse. Issuing too many keys tends to give each holder anonymity. However, if people know there are only three keyholders for a given room, they also realize they will be on a short list of suspects if something disappears.

What Constitutes High Security?

High security lock cylinders typically are unique designs that may be constructed of harder materials to resist drilling and incorporate special features that make them resistant to picking. In some cases, this may include a key with added configurations such as side bit milling to activate an additional locking mechanism. One design combines a standard 6-pin tumbler mechanism with a locking sidebar that is independently controlled by a set of 5 fingerpins that interface with side-bit milling on the key. In many cases, these features will not be readily apparent to the untrained observer, to whom all keys may look alike. Therefore, a manufacturer may stamp its patent number on the key blank to help act as a deterrent. Here's why this works.

Patent Protection Deterrent

High security or key control cylinders have been available in the U.S. for about 30 years and were used in Europe even earlier. Originally, they were conceived to provide greater resistance to picking and drilling, but their patented design proved the answer to the even greater problem of key control.

Over the last ten years, a handful of manufacturers came out with legitimate high security designs. Each has a unique patented feature that acts as a deterrent to unauthorized duplication through the threat of prosecution for patent infringement. Stamping "Do Not Duplicate" on a standard key blank provides little protection by itself. If blanks are readily available, it is easy enough to get someone to duplicate such keys, since there are few legal penalties. An on-line search of records on penal codes that make it a misdemeanor to duplicate a key owned by a city, state, county, or school district turns up almost no convictions. Although such laws are on the books, there are all sorts of defenses and little incentive to prosecute.

Patent infringement is a more serious matter. A business owner is not usually willing to risk his business and invite vigorous prosecution by the patent holder if he duplicates a high security key, even assuming a blank is available.

Adding further protection are the levels of security added by some manufacturers when it comes to who can obtain a blank. The patent holder controls duplication of the keys and can establish whatever regulations it sees fit to enhance security and minimize the possibility of unauthorized use. By restricting the distribution of blanks and limiting those authorized to cut them, the manufacturer can establish a higher level of control than that imposed by law alone.

Why High Security?

With their ease of duplication and limited protection, standard keys can't provide the higher security needed to protect high-value property or provide personal safety in more demanding situations.

Theft is a bigger problem than ever before. The increased cost and easy portability of office or lab equipment today, combined with its greater usefulness to others, makes protection of capital equipment more important than ever. Topping the list of items that disappear from offices are laptop computers, printers, and similar small, high value items.

Theft of services is another matter, if anyone with a key can get into an office on a weekend and place numerous international telephone calls or make hundreds of personal photocopies. Industrial espionage and theft of trade secrets could pose an even bigger loss.

Worse yet, workplace violence has become commonplace, and lawsuits have proliferated for failure to provide a safe environment in offices, hospitals or other buildings. Loss of key control can't be totally prevented in some cases, such as the evacuation of the World Trade Center during the 1993 terrorist bombing. The Wall Street Journal reported that, when a count of keys showed some were missing, the resulting re-keying was estimated to cost $5 million.

Companies and organizations with working key control systems in place stand better equipped to prevent such acts and to withstand lawsuits if violence does occur on site. If something happens in a non-public area of a building, the owner had better be able to show a key control system. Even in hospital emergency rooms, which are seldom locked, the existence of key control can help establish proper intent if an incident occurs.

Key Control Considerations

Manufacturers, who protect key distribution through patent infringement penalties, may develop various degrees of key control and make them available to users. Keys may be restricted so a particular configuration will not be given to anyone else in the same city, Zip code or region. It is even possible to obtain a nationwide proprietary keyway, so no one else in the U.S. can get the same key.

Key control really boils down to three things:

1. Who can get into the room.
   
2. What doors does the key open?
   
3. Why was the key issued?
   

Although a key control system may start out working well, master keys may be issued haphazardly as time goes by. This proliferation of master keys starts with poor information management. Doors may not be numbered properly or cross-referenced to specific keys. As people come and go, offices may be re-assigned. One day, when someone wants to use a vacant office for a short-term project, the boss has a big ring of keys to look through. They may be marked with meaningless numbers, names of former employees, or other obscure identification. Often, he lends someone a master key and has another one made for himself. If record keeping becomes lax, it soon is impossible to tell who has keys or which doors they fit. Therefore, an effective key control system requires limited availability of key blanks and strict record-keeping.

Quality Throughout the System

Lock security and key control depend on the quality of the complete lock and cylinder assembly. From design through manufacture, quality must be incorporated to meet customer values that extend over the life of the lock. Lower life cycle costs are a more reliable guide than low initial cost, and products that exceed minimum BHMA or ANSI standards will be more likely to deliver consistent security with little maintenance or adjustment over the long term.

Keep an Eye on Electronics

Various forms of electronic locking provide different approaches to high security through key control. Typical examples are magnetic card readers or keypads. These are often part of a computerized network or system that offers many levels of control. Access may be limited by location, time or other parameters. Valuable audit trails can be developed from detailed usage patterns recorded for each individual in the system. Key control is easier, since individual cards or codes can be invalidated instantly by computer, rather than changing locks or issuing new keys.
Of course, anything that can be made can be duplicated, and technologies such as magnetic stripe cards and bar codes are no exception. When this happens, security is compromised just as if unauthorized key duplication has occurred.

Cost of these systems may be another limiting factor. One major facility estimates the cost of wiring and equipping a single door with a card reader or keypad, power supply and transfer, related hardware and wiring at close to $5,000. Multi-craft involvement complicates installation, with a carpenter, electrician and locksmith all required.

New Electronic Solutions

One answer is a new "touch key" design now beginning to appear on the market. Instead of a key or a card, each user is given a "touch key" that resembles a standard key blank except for a proprietary computer chip that simply makes contact with the lock's touch port to activate the lock. Each touch key has its own electronic serial number that cannot be duplicated or compromised, and every lock contains a miniature computer, programmed to accept only the electronic serial numbers determined by the system's administrator. These numbers can be changed quickly and easily, at any time, using a palmtop computer and a host PC. Keys can be added or deleted electronically whenever needed. The entire system is software-driven and simple to operate, unlike the sometimes complex rules of mechanical keying systems.

As we move toward the 21st century, such innovations promise to lead the way to maintaining high security in locking with easier key control, even for large installations. These electronic systems make it possible to issue more keys and still maintain the controllability of a "short list." Although 300 people may have access to an area, it is possible to tell who was there, when they were there, and when they left. Systems will even record failed attempts and identify the key holder.

A major advantage of the new electronic touch key systems is self-containment. These battery-operated devices incorporate high-security access and key control features in a unit that is compact and inexpensive and can be installed easily by a locksmith. When replacing a standard mortise lock, no door prep is required, and no wiring is needed. However, the system is designed to be fully integrated with hard-wired door control products such as exit devices, magnetic locks, electric strikes, and power operators.

New developments continue to emerge. In the electronic access control area, as in mechanical high security locks, the existence of a patent will give the manufacturer a powerful tool to discourage unauthorized duplication and protect user security.