History Main / TwoKeyedLock

* The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) which runs the DNS (Doman Name System) and infrastructure that the entire internet runs on does something similar, though they use ''seven'' keys - seven encrypted password keys entrusted to seven different people, which periodically need to be verified with another seven people at a "Root Key Ceremony". The entire event is under extreme security, like out of a spy movie, with hand scanners, secure rooms which no electronic transmissions can escape from, etc.[[http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/technology/the-internet-is-still-actually-controlled-by-14-people-who-hold-7-secret-keys/ar-AAjeZM0?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp ]]

* ''Film/SteelRain''. After the ruler of North Korea is wounded in a coup, what looks like a smart watch is removed from his wrist but when South Korean intelligence try to examine the watch they find it's heavily encoded. Meanwhile the coup leader is trying to activate North Korea's nuclear arsenal. He's handed the code generator, but is told [[DidNotThinkThisThrough there's a second code generator that their GloriousLeader always carried with him]]. [[spoiler:So he has military hackers break the codes of the individual nukes and is able to launch one of them that way. However the protagonist pretends he's stolen the watch and brings it back to him; it's been replaced with a TrackingDevice enabling an airstrike to be called in on the coup leader's secret bunker.]]

* ''Film/SteelRain''. After the ruler of North Korea is wounded in a coup, what looks like a smart watch is removed from his wrist but when South Korean intelligence try to examine the watch they find it's heavily encoded. Meanwhile the coup leader is trying to activate North Korea's nuclear arsenal. He's handed the code generator, but is told [[DidNotThinkThisThrough there's a second code generator that their GloriousLeader always carried with him]]. So he has military hackers break the codes of the individual nukes and is able to launch one of them that way. However the protagonist pretends he's stolen the watch and brings it back to him; it's been replaced with a TrackingDevice enabling an airstrike to be called in on the coup leader's secret bunker.

* In TheFilmOfTheBook of ''Film/TheDeadZone,'' John Smith has a vision of Gregory Stillson as President of the United States. Stillson is hot to launch a nuclear strike at the Soviet Union, but to activate the Nuclear Football, he needs a general's handprint-scan in addition to his own. Stillson tells the general, "Put your hand on that pad, or [[BorrowedBiometricBypass I'll cut it off and do it myself!]]"

* In the animated short ''Dinosaurs: The true story'' by Paul-Louis Aeberhardt, the dinosaurs prepare to launch their nuclear arsenal to destroy the incoming meteor. The nukes are activated with a three-panel handprint scanner. The pteranodon scientist activates his, the ankylosaurus general activates his, then the President...is a T-Rex [[DidNotThinkThisThrough whose tiny arms can't reach the scanner.]]

* ''Film/Godzilla2014''. A nuclear weapon on the deck of a naval vessel is armed via this trope, which along with the [[SpectacularSpinning spinning cogs]] and countdown clock is presumably for RuleOfDrama rather than realism.

* ''Film/Terminator2JudgmentDay'' had a two-keyed lock to access the vault where the arm and chip of [[Film/TheTerminator the previous film]]'s Terminator were kept.

** Some machines feature increasing sophisticated sensors to prevent the operator from bypassing the two hand start, which may include interrupted beam optical sensors(defeated by broomstick handles), capacitive finger buttons(hotdogs), and anti-tiedown logic(usually not worth defeating, but sometimes jumped out inside the panel).

* Vault doors also have this in some cases as an alternative to time locks, with two sets of combinations and two dials. It has the advantage of allowing the bank to access the inside of the vault, which in one notable case was useful as thieves had tunneled inside the vault(a slight flaw in time locks as there is no way to look inside the vault if someone is thought to be inside, there is absolutely nothing that can be done).

* The Thieves' Guild vault in ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'' has one of these, with the keys being owned by the most powerful members of the guild. [[spoiler:No one realizes it's already been emptied by Guildmaster Mercer Frey, using a magical lockpick he stole from the goddess Nocturnal.]]

* The Dungeoneering skill in ''VideoGame/RuneScape'' has two variants on this, in the lever room and follow-the-statue-leaders emote rooms.
** An earlier example would be getting to the king dagganoths, which requires two people (or one person and a pet rock) to get past any of the three entrances to the monsters, then three people (each having gone down a different path) to open the door to the kings' lair. The rune thrownaxe was later introduced to circumvent it, as its special attack lets it ricochet off of all three ends.

* The "[[https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/10/health/condom-consent-four-hands-trnd/index.html Consent Condom]]", a condom which requires four hands to open.

* Coupled with BorrowedBiometricBypass in ''Film/CharliesAngels2000'', where entering a corporation's computer vault requires the fingerprints of one director and the iris scan of another.

* ''VideoGame/MarioParty5'': In the minigame ID UFO, two pairs of characters have to press the UFO icons that match the ones shown in front of them. The caveat is that, for each team, the two correct icons have to be pressed at the same time (each by one character), and doing so grants a point to that team while replacing all present [=UFOs=] with the next batch. Whichever team manages to score three points will win; but if neither succeeds at that after 60 seconds, the minigame ends in a tie.

* ''VideoGame/TormentedSouls:'' The door to the bunker is locked by two widely separated retinal scanners. The cult is keen on twins, and the idea is that the door will be only unlocked by having one identical twin at each scanner. Caroline needs to get in, but there's only one of her. [[spoiler:The solution is to go back in time to the beginning of the game when Caroline is unconscious, and have her remove one of her own eyes to hang next to the other scanner, [[StableTimeLoop thus solving the mystery of why she woke up at the beginning with a missing eye]]]].

* ''VideoGame/TormentedSouls:'' The door to the bunker is locked by two widely separated eyeball scanners. The cult is keen on twins, and the idea is that the door will be only unlocked by having one identical twin at each scanner. Caroline needs to get in, there's only one of her, ''and'' someone removed one of her eyes when she was unconscious. [[spoiler:A StableTimeLoop enables her to go back and remove her own eye]].

* Unfortunately frequent in the [=PS2=]-exclusive ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'' expansion ''[[VideoGame/HalfLifeDecay Decay]]'', where the designers' idea of co-operative gameplay was to include puzzles that require two players to work synchronously to be solved efficiently, such as turning switches on opposing sides of a room simultaneously.

** ''Literature/StarWarsAllegiance'': Mara's field gear includes a lightsaber hidden inside an innocuous-looking data analysis unit. The unit has ''three'' hidden catches which must be tripped simultaneously to open it, only two of which can be reached at once by humanoid beings. Mara uses her hands on those and trips the third with the Force.

* Joked about in a [[http://what-if.xkcd.com/104/ "What If"]] on ''WebComic/{{xkcd}}'' with the National Weather Service having a special snow measuring board:
-->"It's snowing. We'd better go get the board."\\
"OK. You'll need to come along since we need two people to turn the keys to access it."
** Also from ''xkcd'': [[https://xkcd.com/2677 (description TBA)]]