"Digital Legacy After Death: What happens to your online presence when you're gone"....by Gurjot Singh Kaler

Digital footprints are an important concern in today’s 21st century internet dominated era. We all have our unique digital footprints which we keep expanding day by day, week after week, month after month, and year after year. 

According to some internet studies, as of year 2023, there is roughly 64 % of the world’s population or 5.16 billion internet users which have a unique digital footprint on internet and this is expected to increase exponentially in the coming years. 

Our digital footprints are a result of our behavior associated with mobile phones, laptops, computers, etc., as we download apps, use social media platforms, indulge in online shopping and continue to spend more hours browsing the vast world of internet. 

Our lives today are increasingly intertwined with the digital world, from social media profiles to online financial and personal accounts.While the social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram etc., have connected people across the globe and we enjoy talking about our daily lives, it is also a fact that death is inevitable and hence, it begs the question as to what happens to our personal information on internet when we are gone. 

The fact is that when someone dies today, they not only leave behind physical assets but also, a lot of digital content. Recently, it has been observed that people are also planning and organising virtual funerals and leaving Power of Attorneys to deal with their digital content when they leave the world. This is a significant area of interest and needs to be explored in detail.

According to a recent study by the Oxford Internet Institute, it has been reported that by the end of this century, the number of deceased Facebook user accounts will reach the figure of nearly 5 billion. This is expected to outnumber the figure of living user accounts on Facebook. 

Quite astonishing to say the least! While we should always think positively and be optimistic towards life, however, it is also important to devote sometime to ponder over as to what would happen to our digital assets including the memorable photos, special videos, important emails, our social media accounts like Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly, Twitter), etc., and our cryptocurrency wallets if we simply die without addressing these concerns in advance.

The social media accounts of the deceased persons can serve as gold mines for criminals to steal their personal identities and misuse the information for achieving nefarious ends. There can be multiple cyber security threats that can put a deceased person’s personal information at risk. 

After reading it, do you now feel anxious, worried or stressful about it? If yes is your answer, then, it becomes naturally crucial for you to learn about the concept of ‘Digital Legacy’ and how to create a ‘Digital Will’ so that your online assets in the digital world are secured even after you die in the real world and these digital assets can be safely transferred to your loved ones as per your last wishes. 

Digital inheritance involves the passing down of digital assets to the selected beneficiaries after a person’s death as part of the estate of the deceased. The digital assets include digital estates and the right to use them like bank accounts, photographs, writings and social interactions. 

If a person has created a ‘Digital Will’ in advance, he/she can mention in a clear manner as to how would they prefer their family or friends to deal with their digital presence and online assets to be handled after they are dead. In the ‘Digital Will’, the person can specify as to which family members or close friends can be given the access of their digital assets and also, whether they would want to keep open or memorialise their social media account or just get them closed permanently. Another equally good option can be downloading all the digital data like photos and videos before dying and storing them on a hard drive or on a Cloud for being left as a lifelong memory to the family.

However, if you do not create a ‘Digital Will’ wherein you clearly outline your desire vis-à-vis handling of your digital assets like social media accounts after death, then, in such circumstances, the social media companies have a discretion to deal with the status of such deceased users’ accounts in terms of deleting them, memorialising them or leaving them open. 

Whatever information we post on social media platforms gets automatically owned by the companies and in most cases, if we do not express explicit choice to deal with our photographs or videos upon our death, then, these social media companies can continue to use them for promotional or advertisement purposes. But if we have expressed our intentions in a lucid manner, then, these social media platforms have provided proper criterion of instructions to adequately take care of the deceased user accounts.

 For instance, Facebook and Instagram can ‘Memorialise’ the accounts of deceased users and write the word ‘Remembering’ in front of their names so that the world can come to know that the concerned user has died and people can watch the photos, videos or leave condolences messages on their profile depending upon the privacy settings of that person’s social media account. Such ‘memorialised’ accounts do not pop up on search engines, and their friends are not shown the painful birthday reminders etc. 

Facebook also gives the users the option to designate some persons as ‘legacy contacts’ who can manage the deceased user’s account when they die. The Facebook legacy contact can be nominated by the user in Facebook’s General Account Settings, in the section called Memorialization Setting. Since Instagram is also owned by Meta (Facebook’s parent company), the policy to deal with the deceased user accounts is almost the same. 

The executor can take a decision whether to keep the account open, delete or memorialise it. Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, Microsoft, etc., have their own policies to deal with the deceased user profiles on their platforms and can be read by going to their respective websites.

In the absence of any explicit directions from the deceased person expressed in the form of ‘Digital Will’, the close family members and friends also have the option to contact the concerned social media companies to deactivate, hide or permanently close down such accounts. Sometimes, the family members can also request access from these social media platforms of the concerned social media accounts of their loved ones and continue to post photos, videos and messages on their accounts to immortalize the memories of their deceased ones.

To deal with the social media accounts of the loved ones who have left the world, their close family members and friends need to fill out certain forms and online documents on these social media companies’ websites and provide death certificate of the user as well as give a credible proof of their relationship with the deceased users of the social media account. Different social media companies have their own varying requirements to be fulfilled in the case of death of a user and hence, these need to searched on their specific websites to deal with it.

 However, these are not complex and can be easily taken care of after going through their policies. Just like social media platforms, the email service providers like Google (Gmail), Yahoo (yahoo mail) also have their own specific requirements for dealing with the accounts of the deceased persons. It is also to be noted that iCloud and iTunes accounts are non-transferable upon a person’s death. This is because the content on these platforms is not owned by the users but they only have access to use it.

Digital legacy can also be managed by creating a secure document (either a physically sealed item, a hard drive, or a password-protected cloud drive) which has information about all your accounts, usernames and passwords. However, its important to keep in mind all the privacy precautions to ensure safety and security and such sensitive information should only be shared with people whom you trust.

One more way to take care of your digital content when you die is to consider the option of using a password manager. Through the password management tool, you can store all your login information and passwords in a central location which can be preset in such a manner that they can be delivered to the selected individuals upon your death. 

By using the option of password manager, it will be an easy and smooth way to give your loved ones the access of your digital content. In the absence of login information and passwords, it will be a really cumbersome task for your Power of Attorney to execute your wishes upon death.

 It would be worthwhile to provide a log of all your digital information and social media accounts in your Trust or Will, and what you would like to do with each of them. Planning your digital inheritance and outlining a legal strategy to enforce it can be a game-changer in taking care of your virtual assets on a digital landscape. 

In nutshell, what happens to your digital assets when you die actually depends on the decisions you make with regards to it while you are alive. Making a digital will to enable who will preserve, control or delete your online accounts when you are gone can be helpful to prevent identity thefts, preserve documents and records you want saved as well as stop your friends and family receiving traumatic pop-up reminders on social media. 

So, are you ready to plan your ‘Digital Legacy’ before you die? It’s time to think about it before it’s too late.

October 20, 2023