Some municipalities have restrictions on it, ranging from no restrictions to outright ban, or requiring the locksmith to keep on file the identity of who requested a key, and/or "proof" of ownership of the lock (physically bringing it in, letter on company letterhead, etc.)
On Thu, 25 Feb 2016, Jay West wrote:
My current locksmith - the first time I went in and asked him to cut a key, he said since it was stamped "do not duplicate" I would have to bring in the item it went to. I walked out. Came back later that day with a two wheeler, and lifted an HP 2100S cpu onto his counter. He no longer asks ;)
Many locksmiths, including most big-box home improvement stores (who no longer keep a decent array of keys), will cut a duplicate of a key that has a piece of masking tape over a "Do Not Duplicate" stamp! It is illegal to duplicate a DO-NOT-Duplicate key for anybody too stupid to cover the staamp.
One thing strikes me... how to prevent incorrect data. I can think of two types; A) Someone just types in bogus info, and B) I'm sure that over the decades... someone in some computer room somewhere replaced a lock for system XYZ with a standard off the shelf one. If they measure it and send in the info - we have no way of knowing if that was a (computer) manufacturer supplied lock and thus helpful to others, or some one-off that someone installed themselves and thus an invalid datapoint. Perhaps only list an entry if more than one person submits identical data?
Howzbout: list any that are reported, and a count of how many report that particular info. That way, a single instance provides a hint of possible inaccuracies (easy to do), or even completely different than standard lock. A dozen people reporting identical data is a pretty good confirmation, and if it doesn't work for you, then YOUR lock may have been replaced at some point. If only one other person has that machine, I'd rather have their unconfimed measurements than a void in the database.
BTW, a decent machinist could easily build an Ace lock picking tool that is calibrated - the sliders could be set to me the same depths as any Ace key. Without knowledge of commercial availability, I designed one (but didn't build) in high school half a century ago.
