Vacuum expectation values of the energy–momentum tensor for a conformally coupled scalar field are investigated in de Sitter (dS) spacetime in presence of a curved brane on which the field obeys the Robin boundary condition with coordinate dependent coefficients. To generate the corresponding vacuum densities we use the conformal relation between dS and Rindler spacetimes and the results previously obtained by one of the authors for the Rindler counterpart. The resulting energy–momentum tensor is non-diagonal and induces anisotropic vacuum stresses. The asymptotic behaviour of this tensor is investigated near the dS horizon and the boundary
