Some codes are clearly not giving any safety improvements.
Austria (and particularly Vienna) introduced a standardized key system for electrical and gas service equipment in the 1950s. Later on, it was used more and more used for meter boxes and panel doors, meaning it was sold to the general public.
In the late 1990s a new system was introduced for main fuse boxes where ordinary people just don't have any reason to mess with. Fine with me. The older system continued to be used for the meter cabinets (if they were in public areas of multifamily buildings) and pre-meter fuse boxes. That means, that legally everybody needs to have a key in order to be able to read the meter and change fuses if necessary.
Effective 1/1/09 the power company introduced a whole new key system, horrendously expensive with magnetic keyed locks and everything. These locks and keys are only sold by the state electrical safety board, and every tenant needs his/her own personally registered key that only fits the own fuse boxes/meter cabinets, not the neighbor's. The only minor improvement: people can't go around randomly unscrewing fuses. Now I've never heard of that happening. However, the safety board now got a very nice new income source... the old keys and locks were sold by every locksmith.
