Seriously, why are we still carrying car keys?

The other day, I had an emergency that needed the humble mobility of my personal car. Alas, my key was somewhere else, unwittingly forgotten in the process of me returning a test-drive unit. Imagine the frustration of being able to see and touch your car in its parking slot, and not being able to even open it — let alone drive it — just as you’re trying to rush to a loved one requiring medical attention. So I had to take a cab instead.

In the cab, I kept wishing car keys had been small enough to also serve as necklace pendants. That way, you’d never have to part with them.

Then I remembered that the vehicle I had just borrowed didn’t have an actual key anymore, like most modern automobiles today. This small hatchback — the stylish Mazda 2, if you’re curious — no longer had a traditional ignition switch keyway, and instead had a push button for starting or killing the engine. Of course, I had to have the key fob (sans the outmoded blade) with me inside the vehicle for the whole thing to work. Once the sensors couldn’t detect the key fob within the cabin, the system would sound off an audible warning (and then shut the engine off, I suppose, if I failed to produce what it was looking for).

Neither was the phased-out contoured blade necessary in opening the doors. With the latest cars now boasting keyless entry, I simply pressed the unlock button on the key fob and I had ingress. On more sophisticated systems, a smart key doesn’t even have to be taken out of your pocket. Its proximity alone allows you access into the vehicle when you grab a door handle.

And so what many car owners are carrying on their person these days aren’t really keys, but mere sensor triggers to grant them entry into their vehicle and let said vehicle know that they possess the legal right to operate it. Now, in this era of wireless mechanisms and digital networks, a question is begging to be asked: Do we still really need car keys (or key fobs, for that matter)?

I kid not: Just as I had gone through and pondered the sequence of events described above, I came across a recent Reuters report relating how “BMW is reviewing the necessity of car keys.” The article noted that most motorists already have a smartphone, and that this device may be used to do the job of the key fob. The German automaker, in particular, has an app that offers “remote services.” If you install this app on your phone and pair it with your ultimate driving machine — one that’s equipped with a compatible program — it will let you lock and unlock your car, activate the air-conditioning, honk the horn or flash the lights from a distance. It can also tell you if you left the windows or the trunk open, in case you can’t focus on Emma Stone inside the cinema because your OCD is acting up.

“Honestly, how many people really need [the key fob]?” a BMW board member was quoted as saying. “They never take it out of their pocket, so why do I need to carry it around?”

The Swedish car company Volvo floated a similar idea as early as February 2016, when it announced that its customers would be “offered an application for their mobile phones to replace the physical key with a digital key.” Let’s say you want a friend to pick up your car from some parking lot after a night of carousing forced you to take Uber going home, but the key is with you. With the proposed Bluetooth-enabled technology, you can just send the “digital key” to your friend’s phone. Which your car then reads and recognizes to give your friend access.

At the time of the announcement, Volvo claimed it was already testing this technology, and that it aimed to be the first automotive manufacturer to sell cars without keys. This tells us the system already exists, and it’s now just a matter of smoothing out its rough edges. If Apple could make facial recognition widely available for the iPhone X, I don’t see what’s stopping car companies from introducing less-complex Quick Response code scanners on their more expensive (and infinitely more valuable) products.

And more to the point, if a P50,000 smartphone can be so personalized that it is able to validate its owner’s identity, why can’t a P1.5-million sedan? Picture a car that won’t unlock its doors unless a scanner on a designated door handle reads the authorized thumbprint. One that won’t start unless a camera on the steering wheel recognizes the driver’s face. Or one that will send out distress signals to the owner or the authorities if it senses that it is being broken into.

Of course, there are security concerns. But these are virtually the same concerns you might encounter if you had a regular key with you. Worried a criminal could point a gun at you and coerce you to lend your thumb and face to start the vehicle? Well, he could do the same if you had a physical key. Worried the system could be hacked? The engineers of car companies can make life hell even for tech-savvy crooks. Worried the system could malfunction and you would have no way to override it? The manufacturer can provide a way to bypass it without entailing the use of a conventional key.

But the upside is this: no more easy-to-lose keys. Your person is your key. No more encumbrance from having to lug around an item that only takes up space in your favorite placket. No more brain-jogging for the location of something your 45-year-old self keeps forgetting. And no more panicking and cursing in emergency situations.

You may e-mail the author at vbsarne@visor.ph.