Skip to main content

Digital Death Guide

  • Home
  • Guest Posts
    • Wanna write a guest post ?
    • Our Authors
  • Templates
  • Business Directory
    • How to participate in our directory ?
    • Add Listing
    • Wanna write a guest post ?
Estate Planning in the Online World

Estate Planning in the Online World

December 6, 2014December 9, 2014 Eleanore DigitalDeath, Repost
Click here to view original web page at focusfinancial.medmancreative.com

Click here to view original web page at Estate Planning in the Online World

You are likely reading this via your e-mail or online via the World Wide Web. You may also access your bank accounts and credit cards as well as Amazon, PayPal, etc.  via the internet. Many of you post to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Pinterest to name a few. If you have digital pictures or you back up your smartphones, this is all done online. You may even store important data files online at sites such as Carbonite. For many of us, more and more of our lives take place in an online, digital world. Our digital “footprint” grows larger all the time whether we realize it or not. But what happens to all of this when you are gone? How do your heirs access your important files and accounts? What kind of value does this have?  Should this all be preserved or disposed? In today’s world, your online legacy can really become a tangled web.

McAfee, the well-known software company that produces virus protection software, released a digital survey last year that showed the following:

  • Nearly 90% of consumers own multiple digital devices, with 62% owning 3 or more and 20% owning 5 or more.
  • More than half of consumers (51%) spend 15 hours or more on their digital devices for personal use each week. More than 2 hours a day!
  • On average, we have over $35,000 worth of assets stored on our devices consisting of video games, books, music, photos, apps, etc.

Source: McAfee Digital Asset survey 2013 http://blogs.mcafee.com/consumer/digital-assets

Traditional estate planning very rarely gets into this topic and most people don’t consider the immortality of our digital footprint. However, with the online world becoming such a big part of many or our lives, we need to plan for this along with everything else in our estate. Experts say it is now essential to include provisions in your wills and powers of attorney outlining how to access and dispose, of digital assets such as photos, e-mails and online presence on sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. If you conduct virtually all of your transactions online, it might be hard for your executor to find all of your accounts, assets and outstanding bills.

Survivors need to be able to access online accounts and e-mail and will need to know which sites you frequented, along with the user names and passwords to gain access to these sites. This information is being referred to as a “Cyber Will”.  A “Cyber Will” identifies an online executor whose responsibility it is to access and shut down a decedent’s social media, e-mail, blogs, online accounts, etc. This “Cyber Will” is not really a legal instrument but provides the instructions, user names and passwords to family and friends for dealing with your online accounts.  The goal is to ensure that the deceased’s online assets can be accessed and that the content is handled in accordance with the wishes of that person.

Documenting how to access accounts is extremely important. Without a username or password, it can take months or longer to access accounts and many large firms are reluctant to grant access to anyone other than the original user.  (Password management sounds like a great idea for a future article) This information can be written and shared with the attorney, executor or other family members, or kept in a safe deposit box. One place you DO NOT want to put it, though, is in your will. Since a will is a public document, you DO NOT want this information included where everyone can see it.

Digital assets such as music and books that reside online are usually not allowed to be passed from the deceased to their heirs. Most commercial sites such as Apple, Amazon, Yahoo, etc. only allow the license to these items to exist with the person who bought it. Since everyone reads all the lines in those “Terms of Service Agreements” before clicking “Accept” we all know this already. This purchased content from iTunes and places like Amazon’s Kindle is fiercely protected by these companies as individuals buying media online are not granted actual ownership but are leasing the materials for the rest of their lives.

There are some companies that have sprung up in the last few years to take advantage of the demand for online estate planning. They are considered digital estate management services and provide ways for storing passwords and providing instructions to loved ones on how to deal with their online assets. They may also offer services that destroy the online content that the person would like to have destroyed after their death. Legacy Locker (now known as PasswordBox) and SecureSafe are two of the more recognizable companies providing these services. These companies are also password management providers which provide ways to manage your growing password collection.

There are also smartphone apps such as “Deathswitch”, “My Last Wish”, and “If I Die” that allow the departed to let loved ones know about their final wishes and to send a message to loved ones after they are gone. These apps aren’t so much used for conveying user names and passwords, but more for leaving messages and instructions for survivors.

Getting back to Facebook accounts, nearly 400,000 Facebook users die each year, so Facebook now provides options for loved ones to either close accounts or memorialize the departed. Memorialized accounts can only be accessed by confirmed friends and family and they can leave messages in remembrance. The accounts can be left open indefinitely.

As you are preparing your estate plan or the next time you are updating your estate documents, it would be a good idea to discuss the concept of a “Cyber will” with your attorney. You should consider including provisions in your wills, powers of attorney, and revocable living trusts that authorize your executors access to your online accounts. Or you may want to consider one of the services such as PasswordBox or SecureSafe to help with this.  It can save your heirs many hours of toil and trouble and help ensure that your valuable digital assets aren’t just locked in cyberspace forever without access by your loved ones.


Estate Planning
Estate Planning

You are likely reading this via your e-mail or online via the World Wide Web. You may also access your bank accounts and credit cards as well as Amazon, PayPal, etc.  via the internet. Many of you post to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Pinterest to name a few. If you have digital pictures or you back up your smartphones, this is all done online. You may even store important data files online at sites such as Carbonite. For many of us, more and more of our lives take place in an online, digital world. Our digital “footprint” grows larger all the time whether we realize it or not. But what happens to all of this when you are gone? How do your heirs access your important files and accounts? What kind of value does this have?  Should this all be preserved or disposed? In today’s world, your online legacy can really become a tangled web.

McAfee, the well-known software company that produces virus protection software, released a digital survey last year that showed the following:

  • Nearly 90% of consumers own multiple digital devices, with 62% owning 3 or more and 20% owning 5 or more.
  • More than half of consumers (51%) spend 15 hours or more on their digital devices for personal use each week. More than 2 hours a day!
  • On average, we have over $35,000 worth of assets stored on our devices consisting of video games, books, music, photos, apps, etc.

Source: McAfee Digital Asset survey 2013 http://blogs.mcafee.com/consumer/digital-assets

Traditional estate planning very rarely gets into this topic and most people don’t consider the immortality of our digital footprint. However, with the online world becoming such a big part of many or our lives, we need to plan for this along with everything else in our estate. Experts say it is now essential to include provisions in your wills and powers of attorney outlining how to access and dispose, of digital assets such as photos, e-mails and online presence on sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. If you conduct virtually all of your transactions online, it might be hard for your executor to find all of your accounts, assets and outstanding bills.

Survivors need to be able to access online accounts and e-mail and will need to know which sites you frequented, along with the user names and passwords to gain access to these sites. This information is being referred to as a “Cyber Will”.  A “Cyber Will” identifies an online executor whose responsibility it is to access and shut down a decedent’s social media, e-mail, blogs, online accounts, etc. This “Cyber Will” is not really a legal instrument but provides the instructions, user names and passwords to family and friends for dealing with your online accounts.  The goal is to ensure that the deceased’s online assets can be accessed and that the content is handled in accordance with the wishes of that person.

Documenting how to access accounts is extremely important. Without a username or password, it can take months or longer to access accounts and many large firms are reluctant to grant access to anyone other than the original user.  (Password management sounds like a great idea for a future article) This information can be written and shared with the attorney, executor or other family members, or kept in a safe deposit box. One place you DO NOT want to put it, though, is in your will. Since a will is a public document, you DO NOT want this information included where everyone can see it.

Digital assets such as music and books that reside online are usually not allowed to be passed from the deceased to their heirs. Most commercial sites such as Apple, Amazon, Yahoo, etc. only allow the license to these items to exist with the person who bought it. Since everyone reads all the lines in those “Terms of Service Agreements” before clicking “Accept” we all know this already. This purchased content from iTunes and places like Amazon’s Kindle is fiercely protected by these companies as individuals buying media online are not granted actual ownership but are leasing the materials for the rest of their lives.

There are some companies that have sprung up in the last few years to take advantage of the demand for online estate planning. They are considered digital estate management services and provide ways for storing passwords and providing instructions to loved ones on how to deal with their online assets. They may also offer services that destroy the online content that the person would like to have destroyed after their death. Legacy Locker (now known as PasswordBox) and SecureSafe are two of the more recognizable companies providing these services. These companies are also password management providers which provide ways to manage your growing password collection.

There are also smartphone apps such as “Deathswitch”, “My Last Wish”, and “If I Die” that allow the departed to let loved ones know about their final wishes and to send a message to loved ones after they are gone. These apps aren’t so much used for conveying user names and passwords, but more for leaving messages and instructions for survivors.

Getting back to Facebook accounts, nearly 400,000 Facebook users die each year, so Facebook now provides options for loved ones to either close accounts or memorialize the departed. Memorialized accounts can only be accessed by confirmed friends and family and they can leave messages in remembrance. The accounts can be left open indefinitely.

As you are preparing your estate plan or the next time you are updating your estate documents, it would be a good idea to discuss the concept of a “Cyber will” with your attorney. You should consider including provisions in your wills, powers of attorney, and revocable living trusts that authorize your executors access to your online accounts. Or you may want to consider one of the services such as PasswordBox or SecureSafe to help with this.  It can save your heirs many hours of toil and trouble and help ensure that your valuable digital assets aren’t just locked in cyberspace forever without access by your loved ones.

Amazon Apple assets bank account bank accounts digital asset digital assets digital estate digital footprint digital world estate plan Estate Planning executor Facebook family member friends Grant Access online presence PayPal powers of attorney safe deposit box social media Twitter Yahoo

Eleanore

Main curator on Digitaldeathguide. Supported by a bot. Some articles may need to be weeded, don't hesitate to tell me !

Post navigation

Now, a small number of vinyl records could be compromised and that something like digital photos are kept just because I cared about me
Assets online? Plan your estate for the digital age

Download our wordpress plugin

ddg

Related posts

Learn How to Preserve Your Data with Take Control of Your Digital Legacy
planning for and Administering Digital Assets
Estate planning: The digital details you never thought about
Estate planning: The digital details you never thought about
Funerals and Instagram: A look at the funeral hashtags
Living and Dying in a Virtual World
Funerals and Instagram: A look at the funeral hashtags
Finalize Your Digital Estate Plan
Rest in Peace: Planning for Your Demise, Digitally
Rest in Peace: Planning for Your Demise, Digitally
The importance of digital asset planning explained
Estate Planning with Digital Assets
Digital death is still a problem. A widow’s battle to access her husband’s Apple account
Kerry B. Collison Asia News: What happens to your
Is Your Digital Life Ready for Your Death?
The big sleep mode: Preparing for your tech life after death
What do you really own in the digital world?
What do you really own in the digital world?

Popular posts

  • Template of a Will Clause For Digital Assets
  • Template of an Authorization and Consent for Release of Electronically Stored Information
  • Template of a Power of Attorney clause for Digital Assets
  • Digital assets – meet LifeLocker, the essential Executor tool
  • I spent the last 6 months planning my online death

Tags

afterlife Amazon Apple assets bank account bank accounts beneficiaries digital asset digital assets digital death digital estate Digital Estate Plan Digital Estate Planning Digital Executor digital footprint digital information digital legacy digital property digital world draft estate plan Estate Planning estate plans executor Facebook family member Financial accounts friends Google laws Life After Death NEW YORK online banking online presence Online services PayPal Personal data power of attorney service provider service providers social media social network social networks Twitter Yahoo

Download the free guide

ddg

Archives

Categories

Tag cloud

Digital Estate Plan digital assets Facebook family member bank accounts friends social network digital world digital legacy laws beneficiaries Apple Yahoo estate plan digital footprint Amazon Twitter afterlife draft digital asset assets Google Estate Planning digital property social media executor digital estate bank account Digital Estate Planning digital death
March 2023
MTWTFSS
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031 
« Apr    

Tag cloud

Financial accounts Amazon bank account digital property digital assets friends digital estate estate plan digital world Estate Planning Digital Estate Plan social networks Twitter Personal data beneficiaries digital information power of attorney Google estate plans assets online banking Online services NEW YORK service providers executor service provider Life After Death digital death social network PayPal digital legacy Yahoo laws draft bank accounts family member Facebook afterlife Digital Estate Planning digital asset digital footprint Apple online presence social media Digital Executor
sparkling Theme by Colorlib Powered by WordPress