Primary passphrase
Real vault
Full access for you
Keys stay local
Shield
Shield onlyDuress passphrase: a second passphrase 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 passphrase did you enter?
Primary passphrase
Real vault
Full access for you
Duress passphrase
Decoy vault
Looks normal on screen
Plain English
Duress means being forced to act under threat or pressure. In HeirVault, the duress passphrase is that second passphrase: you can hand it over under coercion without opening your real vault.
What it is for
Shield includes a duress passphrase 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 passphrase was already captured.
How it works
You enroll a second passphrase in Security settings. Signing in with it looks familiar on the screen, then Shield runs the forced-unlock path behind the scenes.
Your duress passphrase 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 irreversible 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 passphrase, a passkey that unlocks the real vault, or an unlocked session, the duress passphrase cannot help.
A duress passphrase 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.