Through the Keyhole

There must be something better than a reliance on keys to get you in and out of places, your possessions and just about everything else.

I often have this feeling, mainly arising from the utter frustration of having tried all but one of a huge bunch of them in a door lock only to find, surprise, surprise that the very last on the fob is the one I need. Lost keys, misplaced keys, keys that snap off at the first turn after insertion, being given the wrong keys involving a 50 mile round trip to retrieve the correct ones and keys that shear off in a roller shutter door only to find that there is a warning against leaving them in the lock stuck to the inside surface.

I am certainly not alone.

I heard that someone had to change the locks on about 100 office doors in a large block after having taken charge of the huge collection of original keys only for them to disappear whilst his responsibility.

In my early and stressful teen years I was made by my parents to sit up all night on a chair in the kitchen guarding the back door to the family house after not being able to find the sole key which I had misguidedly taken to school with me.

It did eventually turn up in the bottom folds of my PE kit bag and I was gratefully released from sentry duty.

Keys are antiques in our hi-tech 21st Century lives and there must surely be a better method of achieving that required level of security and safety.

Of course, we see fancy systems in movies involving iris recognition, fingerprint access and voice activation but these remain elusive acquisitions for the common man and woman. On the X-Files Series one poor soul who had been allegedly abducted by an alien entity set off the bar code reader at the Supermarket which must have been distressing although potentially as asset as a Tesco Loyalty Card holder.

Technical advancements are being made and I saw an article last week about a 25 year old Swedish woman who, fed up with carrying various sets of keys for her home, workplace, gym locker and also troubled with remembering pin numbers and computer passwords volunteered to have a micro-chip implanted in her body which with relevant software could be used instead of those dastardly keys and other forms of everyday access.

The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)  in the form of a grain of rice sized micro-chip was embedded in the bridge of skin between her thumb and fingers. It is designed as a life long feature.

The technology is already widely used for beloved domestic pets but remains a taboo when involving a human application.

The new science of Transhumanism explores how science and technology sits with humanity and has mused long and hard on the sensitive subject of implants in the human body.

There have been opponents citing the scenario of Big Brother in Orwell's 1984 and the inevitable conspiracy theorists have foreseen a society where everything and everyone is traceable in an "Internet of Things".

The practice of RFID chipping is an underground phenomenon in Sweden ,for example, with a sharp increase in those opting to be implanted although the compatibility with actually useful and practical operations remains limited.

I can see distinct advantages in being chipped even with many misgivings over being cloned  or my identity stolen given the recent and apparent ease for supposedly secure systems to be hacked into. It is an interesting field for development and innovation particularly as I remain convinced that there must be something, just anything better than those terrible keys.