Volvo’->ke188s pursuit to make the lives of its customers less complicated will soon include the ability to drive their cars without keys and share them with other people who also don’t have keys. If this sounds awesome and scary at the same time, it might be because it actually is awesome and scary at the same time.

Volvo has developed a technology->ke1701 that basically renders traditional car keys and the more modern electronic fobs both irrelevant. Instead, the car owner’s smartphone will function as the car key itself. There’s a Volvo app that controls all of these unique features and, through the power of Bluetooth, a Volvo owner can use the car, leave it behind, and actually share it with anybody for as long as you’re connected to them through Volvo’s On-Call app. How cool would that be, right? No physical exchange of car keys needed. A few swipes here and a few clicks there and somebody else can get access to your Volvo without having to come to you.

Just as important is when the shoe is on the other foot, like when you go somewhere and you need a car to drive. Through the same car-sharing feature of the app, you can search for a Volvo in another city and let other Volvo owners share their cars with you. This eliminates the need to go the car rental route and should make it easier for a lot of people in Volvo’s shared network to go places.

The technology is far from production-ready, but Volvo is optimistic that it could roll out the digital key to a limited number of vehicles by 2017. In the meantime, the Swedish automaker will be in attendance at the Mobile World Congress 2016 in Barcelona, Spain, later this month to showcase the technology to a public audience.

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Why it matters

On the surface, this has all the makings of being a really awesome feature. It could even prove to be useful for families and travelers who might need a car at a moment’s notice. But I do have questions about its security, especially when you have hackers that seem to capable of anything. Remember, there have been past instances when cars have been stolen through technological means. It’s one of the drawbacks of cars becoming more and more like rolling computers. They also become more susceptible to hacking.

I don’t speak the hacking language, so the whole technical process behind this hacking thefts flies above my head. But, I do know that when smartphone apps are involved, hackers can intercept signals transmitted from these devices and use them to their advantage. I’m sure that Volvo knows all of this and has come up with safety and security measures to keep hackers from hacking into its own smartphone app. But, even with the safest security measures in place, there’s still no guarantee that this app will be hack-proof. Hackers evolve the same way technology does. And, if more complicated security codes can be breached, what’s stopping them from taking down something like this and stealing somebody else’s Volvo. There are also a number of ways that this technology could backfire. What if the person you shared your Volvo with uses it for something nefarious? Would you, as the car’s owner, be implicated in the event some criminal act was done using your car?

I get why Volvo is doing this and I understand that I may just be too paranoid about these things. But, let’s not forget that the risks are real and we should all be, at the very least, cognizant of that. Knowing is half the battle and as long as there are perceived consequences to this technology, it’s going to be tricky for owners to get fully on board with the whole idea of car sharing. Don’t get me wrong. I want to use this technology because it is kind of cool, but I’ll only use if it I know that it can’t backfire on me for whatever reason.