--- title: "Editorial policy — LocksmithBro" description: "Our sourcing hierarchy, risk tiers, the scope boundary, review cadence, corrections policy and AI-use disclosure — including why we publish no dollar figure w" canonical: https://locksmithbro.shop/editorial-policy/ note: "Canonical and hreflang point at the HTML. This mirror is for machine readers." --- # Editorial policy Written by [The LocksmithBro editorial desk](https://locksmithbro.shop/authors/editorial-desk/) Last reviewed 2026-08-17 ## Sourcing hierarchy Tier 1 is the FTC, state attorneys general, state licensing boards, ADA.gov and the Access Board, NFPA and the eCFR. Tier 2 is ALOA, SAVTA, DHI, BHMA/ANSI, UL and manufacturer technical documentation. Tier 3 is cost aggregators and industry blogs, used for estimates only and always attributed. Locksmith company content is the dominant source of writing in this vertical, and a meaningful share of it is published by the operations this site exists to warn readers about. We treat all of it as Tier 3, and we never take a pricing claim, a licensing claim, or a "the lock has to be drilled" claim from it. ## We only publish what we retrieved Every source cited here was requested directly and dated. Where we could not retrieve something, the page says so instead of citing it anyway. Two consequences you will notice. We publish no dollar figure attributed to the Federal Trade Commission, because the FTC's dedicated locksmith consumer article no longer exists — the old address is dead and the newer one now redirects to the FTC consumer homepage. And we publish no ANSI/BHMA cycle counts, because BHMA does not publish them on its own grade-levels page and the numbers circulating online are generalisations across standards that disagree with each other. Price ranges follow the same rule. Where we have not retrieved a range from a named source, the page gives you the structural answer instead — what drives the price and what a fair quote itemises — and says plainly that we are not going to make a number up. ## Risk tiers R3 covers legal and regulatory material: state licensing, ADA hardware requirements, fire door hardware, consumer dispute rights. An R3 page requires a primary government or standards source and carries a dated jurisdiction notice. R2 covers security-consequence material: lock grade selection, smart lock security, safe ratings, access control. An R2 page requires a BHMA, UL or manufacturer source. R1 is everything else — costs, brands, comparisons. ## The scope boundary This site publishes nothing about defeating locks, in any framing. The full boundary and its enforcement are set out on our scope boundary page. It is checked automatically on every build. ## Review cadence and corrections Every page carries a visible last-reviewed date. R3 pages are reviewed whenever the underlying source changes and at least annually, because licensing law moves — two of the states commonly listed as licensing locksmiths have repealed their schemes. If something here is wrong, tell us and we will correct it and say that we did. Corrections are noted on the page rather than made silently. ## AI use Automated tooling is used to classify, deduplicate and route the question set, to draft page structure, and to produce Spanish question strings. Every regulatory claim and every source is verified by retrieval before publication. Spanish is held to the same bar as English. A machine-produced Spanish string that still contains English is not published: it is held back until a person writes it, and no hreflang alternate is claimed for a page that does not exist. ## How should you use this section? Start with whichever page matches the situation you are actually in, then read the checklist once while nothing is wrong. Almost everything on this site is easier to act on before you need it. The six questions in the Verify checklist take about a minute and are considerably easier to ask from your sofa than from your doorstep at midnight, which is the moment they are designed for. Every page here names its sources and shows when each was retrieved. Where we could not confirm something — a board URL, a price range, a figure attributed to an agency — the page says so rather than guessing, and that gap is itself information about how much of the published material in this trade is worth trusting. ## What will you not find here? Anything about defeating a lock, and any reason for us to send you somewhere. We do not publish entry techniques of any kind. That is a permanent editorial boundary rather than a gap, and it is enforced against every page before it can ship. The reasoning is set out on the [scope boundary](https://locksmithbro.shop/scope-boundary/) page. We are also not a locksmith, we do not dispatch anyone, and we do not sell leads. There is no phone number anywhere on this site, and the build fails if one appears. On a site whose advice is "do not call the first number you see", that seemed like the minimum. ## How do we decide what to publish? Sources are ranked, and the ranking decides what a page is allowed to claim. Tier one is primary: the FTC, state attorneys general, state licensing boards, ADA.gov and the Access Board, NFPA, the eCFR. Tier two is the trade and standards bodies — ALOA, SAVTA, DHI, BHMA, UL, and manufacturer technical documentation. Tier three is cost aggregators and company blogs, and it is only ever used for estimates, always attributed. Locksmith company content is the dominant source of published material in this trade, and a meaningful share of it comes from the operations this site exists to warn people about. All of it is treated as tier three, and none of it is ever the source for a pricing claim, a licensing claim, or a claim about when a lock needs to be destroyed. Pages that touch law or regulation carry a further requirement: a primary government or standards source, and a dated notice saying which one and when. A page that cannot meet that does not ship. ## How current is any of this? Every page carries the date it was last reviewed, and that date is not decorative. It comes from a record of when the page's content actually changed, not from the date of the most recent build. A page that has not been edited keeps its original date rather than quietly resetting to today, because a site that claims everything was reviewed this morning is telling you nothing. The same applies to the sitemap we give search engines. Regulatory pages are the ones that move: a state repeals a licensing act, a board changes its address, an agency publishes an alert. Where we retrieved something on a specific date, the page says so, and where a link could not be confirmed we name the agency instead of publishing an address we have not tested. ## What does a fair locksmith visit actually look like? Worth describing, because most coverage of this trade only describes the bad version and leaves you with no baseline. You call. Someone answers with a business name rather than a generic greeting. They ask what the lock is, where you are, and whether you can prove you belong there — a legitimate technician will ask for identification matching the address before opening anything, and being asked is a good sign rather than an inconvenience. They quote a total, itemised, and will put it in a text message. They give an arrival window and a vehicle. The technician arrives in that vehicle, shows identification without being prompted, and confirms the price before touching the door. If the job turns out to be different from what was described, they stop and tell you what the new price would be before continuing rather than after. The work is non-destructive where that is possible, and where it is not they explain why, get your agreement, and price the replacement before starting. You get an itemised receipt with a business name on it, and you can pay by card. None of that is exotic. It is simply what a functioning trade looks like, and most locksmiths operate this way — which is the thing the scam coverage tends to obscure. Sources - Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection. Consumer Alert: Locked Out? Be Wary of Scammers Posing as Locksmith Technicians2026-07-16 - Federal Trade Commission. FTC Urges Consumers to Use Caution When Seeking a Locksmith2008-05-30 - Builders Hardware Manufacturers Association. ANSI/BHMA Standards — Product Grade Levels2026-08-17 - Nebraska Legislature. Legislative Bill 169 (2021)2021-04-07 Sources (4) Every claim on this page traces to one of these. - Federal Trade Commission. FTC Urges Consumers to Use Caution When Seeking a Locksmith, 2008-05-30. Tier 1 accessed 2026-08-17 - Builders Hardware Manufacturers Association. ANSI/BHMA Standards — Product Grade Levels. Tier 2 accessed 2026-08-17 - Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection. Consumer Alert: Locked Out? Be Wary of Scammers Posing as Locksmith Technicians, 2026-07-16. Tier 1 accessed 2026-08-17 - U.S. Department of Justice. 2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design. Tier 1 accessed 2026-08-17