Comment by TeMPOraL

Again, the "lock" part is the dumb part.

Encryption scrambles the data. Key is the piece of information that lets the information be scrambled in specific way so that it can be unscrambled by someone in possession of the same (symmetric) or complementary (asymmetric) key.

The only "lock" in the whole thing is the scrambler (encryption software), and that one is usually publicly known and available.

Obvious way to make this clear: if "keys" were a lock, the original data in readable form would be there, accessible if you found a way to bypass or destroy the lock. The whole point of encryption as opposed to locking is that you cannot do this, because the data itself is scrambled - and thus you don't even need to ship any "lock", just the scrambled data, because the "lock" is something everyone already has or can procure.