Emergency unlock

Your safety always comes first. Emergency unlock ends your lock immediately, for any urgent reason. You don't need anyone's permission, you don't need to explain, and it never costs anything.

When to use it

Whenever you need to, for example:

• pain, numbness, swelling, skin damage or anything that worries you
• a medical issue, a doctor's appointment or a trip to hospital
• you feel unsafe, panicked or unable to cope
• anything else urgent

There's no wrong reason. If you're asking yourself whether it's serious enough, unlock now and talk about it later.

How to do it

1. Open Home (your lock page).
2. Scroll to the bottom and tap Emergency unlock, under Ask keyholder for release.
3. If you like, write what happened in Optional: what happened? You can leave it empty.
4. Tap Unlock now.

If you're self-managing (no keyholder), you won't see this link: End lock at the bottom of your lock page ends your lock straight away, just the same.

What happens next

• Your lock ends right away. Nobody has to approve it, and it never costs anything: no penance is given for it, and it's never behind a paid plan.
• Your keyholder gets an alert saying you used emergency unlock, with your note if you wrote one.
• In your history, the lock is marked Emergency unlock. Your keyholder sees it in their history of locks with you.
• In the feed, it looks exactly like any other lock ending ("ended their lock after 12 days"). CageCheck never singles out an emergency unlock, because a safety decision is never something to be judged for.
• A running lock game stops, and any waiting requests close.
• If you're paired, your tasks and penances are paused for 72 hours, so nothing comes due while you look after yourself. When they resume, each open task and penance has at least 24 hours, and repeating tasks pick up again the next day. You can resume them yourself sooner from the Keyholder tab, and only you can: after 72 hours they resume on their own, and you're both told. See Pause tasks and penances.
• With a Beta lockbox, your way out opens straight away: your lockbox code is shown, or your smart box is told to unlock (or gives you a one-time code). See How your lock is locked.

When you're well and ready, you can start a new lock from Home. It's a good idea to talk it through with your keyholder first.

Keep a way out

Emergency unlock ends your lock in CageCheck. On its own it can't open a physical lock. If CageCheck keeps your lockbox code, it shows it to you at once, and a smart lockbox is asked to open. Even so, make sure you can always get out of your device quickly in an emergency, wherever your key is kept: a Beta lockbox always asks you for a fail-safe for this reason.

Other safety tools

• Safeword: decline any task or penance with 🛑 Use my safeword. There's never a penalty. See Your safeword.
• End the pairing: you can end a pairing at any time from the Keyholder tab. See Pair with a keyholder.
• Contracts never limit this: whatever a contract says, emergency unlock and your safeword always work, and you can end a contract at any time. See Contracts.
• Even when CageCheck is waiting for something from you: if your account is paused until you confirm your email, new terms are waiting for you to agree, or CageCheck asks you to verify your ID again, emergency unlock is right there on that screen, along with your safeword, ending the pairing and blocking. See Verify your ID.
• Block or report: if someone makes you feel unsafe, you can block or report them from their profile.