Primary password
Real vault
Full access for you
Keys stay local
ShieldShield only
Duress password: a second password for when you are forced to unlock. When someone forces you to unlock your vault on a device, Shield lets you sign in with it. It opens a decoy vault, quietly alerts a trusted contact, and locks primary access.
Sign-in
Which password did you enter?
Primary password
Real vault
Full access for you
Duress password
Decoy vault
Looks normal on screen
Plain English
Duress means being forced to act under threat or pressure. In HeirVault, the duress password is that second password: you can hand it over under coercion without opening your real vault.
What it is for
Shield includes a duress password that opens a decoy vault, alerts a trusted contact, and locks primary access. It is for device-level coercion, not a fake identity, and cannot help if the real password was already captured.
How it works
You enroll a second password in Security settings. Signing in with it looks familiar on the screen, then Shield runs the forced-unlock path behind the scenes.
Your duress password unlocks a separate decoy vault you prepared. Your real vault stays sealed and out of that session.
A discreet email goes to the trusted contact you configured. The message avoids language that would tip off someone watching the screen.
Primary vault access locks for a window you choose (1 to 168 hours). Your check-in timer keeps running so a coerced session does not reset release timing.
Schedule destruction of the real vault with a cancellable delay you choose (1 to 72 hours). Cancel from a safe session if it was a false alarm.
Field tools
Shield device API keys can check in, arm lockdown, or schedule a hard kill without opening the dashboard. Scope each key to check-in, panic, or kill. Keys never unlock vault contents.
Reset your timer from a trusted device or script.
Arm lockdown and send the silent alert from a hardware button or script.
Start the cancellable hard-kill delay you configured.
Honest limits
Coercion tools reduce damage in a narrow case. They do not erase every threat.
If someone already has your real password, a passkey that unlocks the real vault, or an unlocked session, the duress password cannot help.
A duress password does not hide that you have a HeirVault account. It does not make you anonymous under every form of interrogation.
HeirVault tags which session used the duress path so lockdown and alerts can run. That tagging is intentional and required for those controls.
Enroll, test the decoy vault, and confirm your alert contact in a safe place before you rely on this under pressure.