Keys to Curbing Crime

Hotel rooms have always been havens for thieves, as Actress Jaclyn Smith, former star of the Charlie's Angels television show, found out earlier this month when a crook slipped into her suite at London's Berkeley Hotel and made off with rings, bracelets and a necklace worth about $110,000.

But some hotel owners are turning to computerized electronic locks to foil burglars. The most popular system is made by Uniqey International of Santa Ana, Calif., and is used in 20 European and American luxury hotels from the Helmsley Palace in New York City to the Hilton International in Dusseldorf, West Germany. Instead of being given a normal key that can be easily copied, guests receive a thin paper card containing a metal foil strip with a precise pattern of holes punched in it by a computer. When someone inserts the card into a small box on his room door, a battery-powered electric motor opens the latch. When a customer checks out of the hotel or reports his card missing, the computer changes his room combination. The electronic watchdog has a total of 4 billion constantly changing combinations. Managers at hotels using computer keys say that the system has virtually eliminated larceny.

The main drawback to Uniqey is its plush price tag: about $200,000 for a 500-room hotel. But hotel executives predict that the traditional key may become as rare as bellboys with round red caps.

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