As we’ve seen in our previous articles on mobile keys and costs, efficient key management and environmental impact of mobile keys: Managing physical keys is a difficult task. The more keys you have, and the more people you grant access to your properties, the harder it is to stay on top of who has access where, and to ensure safety and security in your properties.

Here are some of the common security challenges with physical keys:

Physical keys can get lost, stolen, copied and they can exchange hands. A card- or fob- based system can allow you to revoke access but knowing exactly who has access where at any time is close to impossible. Nevertheless, property managers do what they can.

Unreturned keys

There are many reasons why you might need to give temporary access to your properties to someone; maintenance and renovation work are two common examples. In many cases property managers rely on external companies to do this work, and provide them access by handing over keys to the properties. Sometimes these keys are not returned. These keys can be master-keys that can access a number of properties, which makes the security risk even higher.

Property managers will often have a system to keep track of who has temporary access. This is usually with physical paper receipts collected in binders, or in Excel spreadsheets. Even if you know who you handed the key out to, we see cases where a key has been passed on, or you might be unable to reach the person who received the key(s) originally.

This is a serious challenge, and we have seen examples of companies with a few hundred properties with over 1000 keys lost or missing — that they know of.

Mobile keys

Mobile keys cannot be lost or copied, they are fully digital which allows a full overview of who has access where, at any given time. Access management is done in just a few clicks — allowing you to easily share or revoke access. You set the time-limits for the keys, choosing whether they are to be permanent or temporary. Mobile key usage is also traceable, so it's possible to get notifications when keys are in use.

Do you want to learn more about how Unloc and mobile keys increase security, efficiency, flexibility and sustainability, whilst cutting costs?

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