QR Codes - Risky?

QR codes (or quick-response codes) have been around for years, but surged in popularity during the pandemic as a touch-less way to access menus, packages, and other information. You point your phone’s camera at the black and white image, the camera acts as a scanner, and translates the image into a website URL, saving you the hassle of typing in the website manually. How exactly is it translated? For a nerdy deep-dive into how a QR code is read, check out this interactive explanation!  

But are there downsides to using QR codes? By scanning a QR code, you are going to a website that you don’t know. Usually your phone shows you a preview of the URL, but you are trusting that the website is a legitimate one and not something scammy. A little caution is no bad thing! (By the way, the QR code below is for our website, openroad.network, and your phone’s preview shows you the entire URL.)