Introducing a New Feature — Emergency Access

Ruth Rawlings
emergency access

At NordPass, we’re constantly looking for new ways and ideas to improve your favorite password manager. We’re excited to let you know that yet another brand new feature is here. We call it Emergency Access. Today, we’re taking a deeper look into what the new feature is, why it’s important, and how it works. Here we go.

What is Emergency Access?

For the most part, Emergency Access is just what it sounds like. With the newly introduced Emergency Access feature, you can grant another NordPass user — whether it’s a trusted family member or friend — emergency access to your NordPass vault. Your designated Emergency Access contacts can easily request access to your account and securely receive passwords and secure notes stored in your encrypted NordPass vault without having to know your Master Password.

Why Does Emergency Access Matter?

As the name suggests, Emergency Access is a feature devised for use in emergencies. We don’t like to talk or think about it all that much, but you might want to make sure that your family members or close friends can access your NordPass vault if an emergency arises. Should something happen to you, your family members or friends would have access to your passwords and thus your digital assets. Considering that products and social media companies require extensive documentation before fulfilling account deletion requests, this feature might save your designated emergency access contact a lot of trouble. Emergency Access could also be used as a safeguard if you think you could forget your Master Password.

How Does Emergency Access Work?

As with most NordPass features, Emergency Access has been designed with ease of use in mind. You can find Emergency Access under the tools section in your NordPass app, next to Password Health, Data Breach Scanner, and Password Generator. Please note that Emergency Access is a NordPass Premium feature currently available on the desktop and android apps.

Once you access Emergency Access, you will notice two sections titled Given and Received. The Given section includes a list of contacts to whom you have granted Emergency Access, while the Received section indicates who has granted you Emergency Access.

Once you decide to give access to another user and invite them via email, they will have to either accept the invitation or decline it. When the recipient accepts the invitation, he or she will be able to make a request to see your passwords. If the invited party makes the request to see your passwords, you will be notified about it and have 7 days to grant that access or decline it. If you take no action during the 7-day wait period, the request to see your password will be granted automatically. Once you grant Emergency Access, the person on the other end will be able to see your passwords.

It is important to note that the people you’ve given Emergency Access to will only receive viewing privileges, which means they will not be able to edit, remove, or share anything from your NordPass encrypted vault — they will only be able to view it. Also, you can revoke Emergency Access or simply remove the user at any time.

Here’s a quick walkthrough of how you can set up Emergency Access in NordPass:

  • Open your NordPass app.

  • If you're using an Android device, select Tools.

  • Choose Emergency Access.

  • Select Give Access.

  • Enter an email address and select Give Access.

That’s it. It’s that easy!

We hope you like the new Emergency Access feature. If you have any ideas on how we could make NordPass even better, please let us know by leaving a comment on any of our social media platforms.

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