Can someone inherit a digital identity? At what point does an Instagram account become a business rather than a personal platform? We have already seen this happen with celebrities after they die; Paul Walker, Nipsey Hussle, and Michael Jackson all still have active Instagram accounts. The deceased rapper, Lil Peep, has faced significant controversy over his social media. As I write this, his most recent Instagram post is advertising new merchandise. While some argue that his family is aiming to continue his legacy, others argue that selling sweaters for $95 USD is simply an easy way to profit off Peep’s death.
But what if a celebrity passed away without the public knowing? Could someone run their accounts feigning that the person was still alive? Let’s take a look at Kylie Jenner – she makes approximately $1.2 million per sponsored Instagram post that she shares to her 197 million followers. In the two minutes it takes you to read this blog, she will have made around $633.53. If Kylie died, could someone inherit her account, followers, and digital personality? Between the power of digital image editing and the sheer number of selfies Kylie has taken, her account could hypothetically be run for years after her death. Kylie Jenner may be temporary, but @kyliejenner is immortal.
Who knows? Maybe this has been happening for years, and they are doing a good job of hiding it. Conspiracy? I think not.
For most of us, celebrity or not, our social media presence is an extension of who we are. While our biological body may have passed on, we continue to survive online. Planning your digital death is more than just a Black Mirror-esque fantasy – it is a current, existing issue. With 10,000 Facebook users dying every day, it is estimated that dead Facebook users could outnumber the living by 2069.
Planning your digital death is still relatively new, and possibilities are still being explored. Esther Earl, a sixteen-year-old girl battling thyroid cancer, shocked her loved ones when she tweeted six months after her death. The tweet read, “It’s currently Friday, January 14 of the year 2010. Just wanted to say: I seriously hope that I’m alive when this posts.” While scheduling posts and updates is a cool way to live on (and freak out your friends), planning your digital legacy is usually much less glamourous. Some key tasks include compiling a list of your digital assets, specifying how you want your social media accounts to be handled, and telling a few trusted people where to find your passwords.
Most social media platforms allow for your account to be deactivated by a loved one after presenting a death certificate. This is essential, because there’s nothing worse than waking up to a reminder to wish your dead aunt Kathy a Happy Birthday. Facebook also has the feature to memorialize a user, freezing their account and protecting the user’s legacy. However, no amount of death certificates can give you access to a deceased person’s account. In 2012, a fifteen-year-old girl was hit by a subway train in Berlin. Her family sued Facebook for access her account to see if the girl was being cyberbullied. Facebook refused access, citing privacy legislation. After 6 years of legal battles, the family was finally granted access, but most people wouldn’t be so lucky. Moral of the story: leave a list of your passwords behind so that your loved ones can save on legal fees, and buy you flowers instead.
Cleveland-based startup Vital Chain, is focusing on the creation of digital death certificates and birth records using the distributed ledger technology.
Blockchain offers a lot of potential to vital records. It’s immutability, traceability and its ability for data storage has endeared it to many industries. It is now seen as a technology to store all kinds of records which now includes death certificates? As it is, Medici Ventures, the wholly-owned blockchain accelerator of Overstock.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: OSTK) has entered an agreement with Vital Chain in return for a minority stake.
Why Digitise Birth/Death Certificates?
The first identity document an individual gets when they are born is a birth certificate and the last document they get after they die is a death certificate. These documents are essential to the identity of a man therefore, it’s trail must follow a trustless and auditable path. Although the US has made a move towards digitizing death certificates, the current process for creating an initial record of birth or death is inefficient and fragmented.
The government is the custodian of the identities of its citizens. While identity is important to the government. Ensuring that IDs in various agencies are properly validated, stored and issued without increasing opportunities for errors, fraud and security breach is of topmost importance. But by using the blockchain, governmental agencies can verify birth registration information using the current existing standards of live birth certification. This registration can be secured on the blockchain with the parent controlling the data until the child is of legal age. Access to the cryptographically stored information will be granted by holders consent.
The Vital Chain’s Vision for Identity Storage
To create an innovative solution to this fragmented process of registering a death, Vital Chain is using the blockchain. The solution utilizes blockchain technology as storage for innovative birth and death certificates thereby reducing the reliance on the paper and digital insurance of these vital records. Vital chain is teaming with Medici Ventures, who will acquire an equity stake in Vital Chain to undertake some product development work for the company. By integrating with various government agencies and health systems, Vital Chain will help to save time, increase efficiency, and reduce costs associated with the vital records ecosystem.
Medici Ventures, a wholly-owned blockchain accelerator of Overstock.com is focused on accelerating the adoption of blockchain technology and changing the world. They are already working with companies who are integrating blockchain technologies to industries such as governance, identity, supply chain, capital markets, governance, money and banking, and voting.
According to Jonathan Johnson, CEO of Overstock and president of Medici Ventures:
“Medici Ventures’ is committed to accelerating the adoption of blockchain technology, and Vital Chain is a meaningful addition to our identity pillar…”
Vital Chain is already making progress towards adoption with its partnership with the MetroHealth System. MetroHealth, a public health system and hospital group based in Cleveland, Ohio will work closely with Vital Chain to develop the product and spread its offer to hospitals across the country. On the other hand, Medici Ventures will acquire an equity stake in Vital Chain via product development work it will undertake for the company.
In the words of Shane Bigelow, the CEO of Vital Chain:
“Medici Ventures brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in helping companies like us to build meaningful technology in the identity realm. To have Medici, as the leader in the space, take an ownership stake in our company and involve us in their keiretsu is a great honour…”
From the time someone dies, it usually takes about three years for loved ones to sort out their legal affairs.
Almost half (45 per cent) of Australians die without a will. And from the time someone dies, it usually takes about three years for loved ones to sort out their legal affairs.
When someone dies, their tax debts don’t disappear, leaving loved ones having to sort out the mess through a tricky legal system
Australia’s tax ombudsman, the Inspector-General of Taxation, has conducted a review into deceased estates and suggests having digital death certificates to make the process easier
The issue of death and taxes is a source of common complaints from taxpayers to the ombudsman and the ATO, including claims that tax officers lack empathy
The long and difficult process of sorting out deceased estates could be made easier by allowing digital “death certificates” — or automatic notification using their Medicare number — which is legally enforceable and shared between all layers of government.
This is one of 10 recommendations made by Australia’s tax ombudsman, the Inspector-General of Taxation, in a new report delving into the complicated area of death and taxes.
The area is so legally fraught that each year it results in about 430 complaints by taxpayers to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and Inspector-General of Taxation.
“When you die, someone has to pick up the pieces,” Ms Payne said.
“It’s not just a tax matter but about ensuring affairs are left in an orderly state.”
There was no formal requirement to notify the ATO of a death.
But in order to get the deceased person’s tax affairs sorted, the person acting on their behalf — either their tax agent or the executor of their will where there is one — has to jump through various legal hurdles before being able to access records.
“Different government agencies have different systems and they do not necessarily align,” Ms Payne said.
“A ‘tell us once’ approach would also reduce the stress placed on representatives who are likely the relatives or friends of the deceased.”
Currently, multiple notifications of a death are required across federal, state and local government and various other business and community organisations.
Multiple notifications of a death are currently required across federal, state and local government and various other business and community organisations.(AFP)
160,000 Australians die each year, most with outstanding taxes
ABS data shows almost 160,000 Australians die each year — with about 82 per cent of them aged 65 or over at their date of death and about 55 per cent aged over 80.
State and territory laws determine who can represent the deceased after their death and a “grant of probate”, or letters of administration, are required before the ATO is able to freely engage with the legal representative.
The report notes that different institutions with which the deceased held assets may also impose their own requirements before assets are released.
The legal representative has to lodge any prior-year tax returns that are outstanding and deal with complex estate issues.
Inspector-General of Taxation Karen Payne says there is no formal requirement to notify the ATO of a death.
While there are no death taxes in Australia, there is still an obligation to pay tax on the earnings and investments that had been held by the deceased.
This may include taxes on superannuation payouts (generally the ATO will tax super payouts to nominated beneficiaries at 15 per cent) and capital gains taxes owed on any investments such as shares or property.
Before that can even happen, a tax return is required if a dead person had a taxable income higher than the tax-free threshold of $18,200 in the year that they died.
Since most taxpayers have reached retirement age at the date of their death, they may not have been required to engage with the tax system for some years before they pass away.
How Medicare numbers could help agencies data match
Ms Payne suggests that one way to make the whole process easier would be to have some sort of digital notification of a death that is shared across all government agencies — federal, state, and locally based.
Australia’s Digital Transformation Agency is currently working with NSW agencies and the ATO on a project to develop a digital death certificate by 2025.
But even then, information sharing across government would be limited due to restrictions surrounding the use of some unique identifiers, such as Tax File Numbers.
Ms Payne suggests there may instead be a benefit in exploring the use of Medicare numbers as a possible identifier.
However, it could take years for such a system to develop, and the report noted to date its development had been held up due to the high cost.
The report suggests that in the interim funeral directors “may be well placed to assist grieving friends and relatives to reduce their stress in dealing with the ATO by obtaining information from them which fills ATO data and information gaps”.
Medicare card numbers could provide a possible identifier for government information-sharing and data-matching purposes after a person’s death.(ABC News)
ATO could make it easier to get franking credits
Ms Payne says another common source of complaint by taxpayers about deceased estates relates to how to access a franking credit owed when their loved one passes.
“If you’re alive and don’t have to lodge a tax return — you get your franking credit refunded,” she said.
“But as soon as you die, that form no longer applies to you. There’s no easy way in which people acting on behalf of the deceased can apply.
“You can apply for a tax file number for a trust, and then lodge a tax return for a trust. It goes without saying that as soon as you step into the world of taxation of trusts, the level of complexity goes through the roof.”
The report recommends simplifying tax-filing requirements for a deceased taxpayer, especially simple estates and where filing is necessary to process “low-value” franking credits and other tax refunds.
The report also recommends that the ATO engage with tax practitioners, solicitors and barristers to help develop better guidance for taxpayers dealing with deceased estates.
“Deceased estate issues do not only involve taxation matters but also matters of inheritance, property law, family law, trust law, as well as various state and territory succession laws.”
The report said the ATO does not presently have a dedicated team to deal with deceased estate matters, unlike other government agencies, such as Services Australia.
It suggests “expertise should be developed within the ATO to advise holistically on deceased estate taxation issues”.
The ATO has agreed in full, or part, with all but one of the 10 recommendations.
It disagreed on a part of a recommendation to give binding advice to taxpayers — a move that would possibly help minimise tax disputes — noting that the law was already binding but that “to the extent advice would be about the application of the commissioner’s general power of administration, the ATO does not have the ability to give binding advi
With Covid-19 prompting many of us to examine how we deal with death and dying, a series of online events have been set up providing a digital space where people can share their stories, hopes and fears in relation to loss.
The first events take place this week to coincide with national Dying Matters Awareness Week, and have been organised by Northumbria University academic Dr Stacey Pitsillides in partnership with libraries in Newcastle, Redbridge and Kirklees.
The events are part of The Death Positive Library project, funded by CarnegieUK, and include an online death café and a virtual book club, both of which will give people a much-needed opportunity to explore their emotions and share their feelings in a safe space.
Originally the events were due to take place at Newcastle City Library, but with the Covid-19 pandemic leading to building closures, the library team and Dr Pitsillides have worked hard to provide digital alternatives.
As Dr Pitsillides explains: “Dying Matters Awareness Week is an annual event, but with Covid-19 having such an impact on so many of us, this year it feels as if sharing our emotions and experiences in relation to death is more important than ever.
“Many people are feeling very anxious about death and dying at the moment but, due to lockdown, they might not have the opportunity to discuss those emotions with others.
“These events provide that safe space to share stories, memories, opinions, questions and curiosities about death at a time when that is very much needed.”
The first event taking place this week is an online book club, during which Kate Mayfield’s book The Undertaker’s Daughter will be explored.
It will include a reading by the author, as well as a question and answer session, chaired by Dr Claire Nally, Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature at Northumbria University.
The book club will be a monthly event where members are able to discuss themes of death and loss through literature.
Also taking place this week is a digital death café – an informal discussion group where people can meet online and talk about death in a relaxed setting over tea and cake.
First introduced in the UK in 2011, death cafés aim to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their lives.
Running alongside the two events is a virtual Instagram art gallery, held in collaboration with Marie Curie Hospice in Newcastle and featuring art work by patients created during art therapy sessions.
Despite having to adapt due to lockdown, taking the events online has highlighted the important roles libraries play during times of crisis.
Fiona Hill, Service Delivery Specialist: Community Hubs and Libraries at Newcastle City Council, said: “We are delighted to be working with Dr Pitsillides and Dr Nally from Northumbria University and colleagues from Redbridge and Kirklees libraries.
“The Dying Matters digital programme and The Death Positive Library project is a powerful opportunity to connect with citizens. To open up the conversation and think about death in a new way.”
Dr Pitsillides is a Vice-Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow within the Northumbria School of Design. Her work focuses on death and technology.
She was recently invited to join the Global Covid-19 Relief Coalition and was part of a subgroup tasked with exploring all aspects of death, grief, and virtual funerals.
The group’s white paper has just been released and reflects the input of nearly 100 specialists who work with dying, death, and grief on a daily basis — doctors, grief therapists, psychologists, funeral home directors, hospice workers, chaplains, end-of life-practitioners, and academics, from around the globe.
Dr Pitsillides also features on the latest podcast from Inside China Tech (South China Morning Post), discussing ‘how technology has changed the way we die and mourn’.
Northumbria is a research-rich, business-focused, professional university with a global reputation for academic excellence. Find out more about us at www.northumbria.ac.uk
Please contact our Media and Communications team at media.communications@northumbria.ac.uk or call +44 (0)191 227 4604 with any media enquiries or interview requests
With Covid-19 prompting many of us to examine how we deal with death and dying, a series of online events have been set up providing a digital space where people can share their stories, hopes and fears in relation to loss.
The first events take place this week to coincide with national Dying Matters Awareness Week, and have been organised by Northumbria University academic Dr Stacey Pitsillides in partnership with libraries in Newcastle, Redbridge and Kirklees.
The events are part of The Death Positive Library project, funded by CarnegieUK, and include an online death café and a virtual book club, both of which will give people a much-needed opportunity to explore their emotions and share their feelings in a safe space.
Originally the events were due to take place at Newcastle City Library, but with the Covid-19 pandemic leading to building closures, the library team and Dr Pitsillides have worked hard to provide digital alternatives.
As Dr Pitsillides explains: “Dying Matters Awareness Week is an annual event, but with Covid-19 having such an impact on so many of us, this year it feels as if sharing our emotions and experiences in relation to death is more important than ever.
“Many people are feeling very anxious about death and dying at the moment but, due to lockdown, they might not have the opportunity to discuss those emotions with others.
“These events provide that safe space to share stories, memories, opinions, questions and curiosities about death at a time when that is very much needed.”
The first event taking place this week is an online book club, during which Kate Mayfield’s book The Undertaker’s Daughter will be explored.
It will include a reading by the author, as well as a question and answer session, chaired by Dr Claire Nally, Associate Professor of Modern and Contemporary Literature at Northumbria University.
The book club will be a monthly event where members are able to discuss themes of death and loss through literature.
Also taking place this week is a digital death café – an informal discussion group where people can meet online and talk about death in a relaxed setting over tea and cake.
First introduced in the UK in 2011, death cafés aim to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their lives.
Running alongside the two events is a virtual Instagram art gallery, held in collaboration with Marie Curie Hospice in Newcastle and featuring art work by patients created during art therapy sessions.
Despite having to adapt due to lockdown, taking the events online has highlighted the important roles libraries play during times of crisis.
Fiona Hill, Service Delivery Specialist: Community Hubs and Libraries at Newcastle City Council, said: “We are delighted to be working with Dr Pitsillides and Dr Nally from Northumbria University and colleagues from Redbridge and Kirklees libraries.
“The Dying Matters digital programme and The Death Positive Library project is a powerful opportunity to connect with citizens. To open up the conversation and think about death in a new way.”
Dr Pitsillides is a Vice-Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow within the Northumbria School of Design. Her work focuses on death and technology.
She was recently invited to join the Global Covid-19 Relief Coalition and was part of a subgroup tasked with exploring all aspects of death, grief, and virtual funerals.
The group’s white paper has just been released and reflects the input of nearly 100 specialists who work with dying, death, and grief on a daily basis — doctors, grief therapists, psychologists, funeral home directors, hospice workers, chaplains, end-of life-practitioners, and academics, from around the globe.
Dr Pitsillides also features on the latest podcast from Inside China Tech (South China Morning Post), discussing ‘how technology has changed the way we die and mourn’.
Northumbria is a research-rich, business-focused, professional university with a global reputation for academic excellence. Find out more about us at www.northumbria.ac.uk
Please contact our Media and Communications team at media.communications@northumbria.ac.uk or call +44 (0)191 227 4604 with any media enquiries or interview requests
Liz Eddy has lost track of how many times she’s told the story that led her to co-found Lantern, a website that helps people tackle the complex logistics of losing someone they love and also plan for their own deaths.
That story starts with a phone call on a Saturday morning from a nursing home with news that Eddy’s grandmother had died. Two police officers and a nurse greeted Eddy in the room where her grandmother’s body lay.
“They looked at me and said, ‘What do you want to do?'” recalls Eddy, who was 27 at the time. “I had no idea what to turn to … and really was just thrown into a rapid Google search where I typed in what do you do when someone dies?”
“I was just thrown into a rapid Google search where I typed in what do you do when someone dies?”
Eddy, who lost her father as a child, anticipated this moment. Her grandmother, who was frail, had done some pre-planning. She’d written a will, completed an advanced directive for her medical care, and told Eddy where she kept important paperwork and belongings.
But Eddy quickly learned that there’d been oversights, including how she might close certain accounts, stop auto-refill prescriptions, and find online passwords. Eddy figured she’d rely on a comprehensive online resource that could walk her through what to do but found none. Instead, she embarked on a “scavenger hunt of websites” for answers.
“I fully expected to find something like Lantern,” she says.
In the midst of coping with her grief and trying to settle her grandmother’s affairs, Eddy walked in the door of her best friend Alyssa Ruderman’s home, and said, “We’ve got to do something about death.”
The pair launched Lantern last fall with $890,000 in pre-seed funding. The website offers free checklists for users who need to plan a funeral, help dealing with logistics that follow a funeral, or assistance sorting out their last wishes in advance of their own death. The site has thousands of users, and to Eddy’s surprise, 40 percent of them are 35 and younger.
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Lantern’s appeal to millennials speaks to a number of trends. They may help older parents plan for what happens when they die and then decide to make similar arrangements for themselves. Accustomed to having everything in their lives optimized or organized by a digital tool, the 35-and-under crowd may view online end-of-life planning as a helpful service like any other they use.
In general, talking about dying seems less taboo to many millennials. They encounter the “positive death” movement online, which aims to make conversations about death normal and routine. But millennials also live in a world that seems beset by crisis, whether that’s mass shootings, climate change, or coronavirus. Contemplating what the end looks like is part of being alive.
Anita Hannig, an associate professor of anthropology at Brandeis University who studies death and dying, says people — not just millennials — increasingly want to express their unique selves in death as in life.
The challenge is getting people comfortable enough to consider what that looks like. Eddy and Ruderman have designed Lantern to sound like a compassionate friend who knowingly takes your hand. The site isn’t morbid but instead offers practical information about the choices we can make before we die, like hiring a death doula and how to write a will. Users can compare different burial options, learn how to select life insurance, and explore how they want to be remembered online.
“A lot of people still think that if you’re talking about death too much, there’s an eerie way you’re bringing it about,” Hannig says. “In some ways, having a website like this [is] making death so much more manageable so that you can focus on the actual process of death and dying when it happens.”
Viana McFarland, a 25-year-old New Yorker, discovered Lantern after an employer-sponsored financial planning workshop prompted her to think about what might happen to her belongings and modest savings after she died. After searching Reddit and Google for resources, she found Lantern.
“There were small things I didn’t think about,” McFarland says.
That included the specifics of her burial. McFarland learned that she could let her body decompose in a “mushroom suit,” which hastens the breakdown of a corpse using mushroom spores and other microorganisms. She explored how to donate organs and leave money to the ACLU and Planned Parenthood. Most of all, McFarland wanted to spare her loved ones stress, confusion, and conflict. The time she spent on Lantern felt useful and productive.
“I guess younger people, with more resources at our hands, might become informed sooner or in a different way than our parents and grandparents were,” says McFarland.
More than three dozen articles on Lantern offer advice and insight on common questions. Its checklist offers a step-by-step guide to managing your last wishes. Tasks include making a funeral financial plan, safely storing financial information so it can be accessed by a loved one, and writing a last will and testament.
Lantern is also sentimental. The checklist prompts users to reflect on their legacy, asking about the three best decisions they ever made, what advice they’d give to their younger selves, and what they’d want their grandchildren to know about them.
“These questions were really developed because we started to realize that people don’t ask these questions of their loved ones, and it’s often the thing you think about when they’re gone,” says Eddy, who personally longs to know stories from her father’s life.
While it’s crucial to record the practical and sentimental information, Lantern must also deliver on keeping it secure. The site uses encryption and currently doesn’t collect information it doesn’t feel equipped to protect, such as passwords, wills, and Social Security numbers.
Instead, its business model is based on referring users to services that specialize in certain products, and which Eddy and Ruderman have personally vetted. For estate planning, Lantern recommends Legal Zoom. To help loved ones close online accounts, it suggests the password manager 1Password. Lantern can receive a referral fee when its customers sign up for such services. Eddy and Ruderman are also exploring pitching Lantern to organizations, like life insurance companies and hospitals, whose clients need the information the site has to offer. They’re making the same case to human resources departments who could use Lantern as a benefit for employees who, like McFarland, don’t know how to start end-of-life planning.
Though Lantern will probably offer a premium subscription to users in the future, Eddy and Ruderman are adamant that its basic how-to content and checklists will never be paywalled.
“We don’t think people should not have access to this information because they do not have means,” says Eddy.
The company can take that stand because it’s a public benefit corporation, which means it plans to pursue a mission-driven approach while also seeking a return for investors.
“Our vision is to be the central resource that any one person uses to navigate their life before and after a death.”
Nancy Lublin, an entrepreneur who is the founder and CEO of Crisis Text Line and the former CEO of DoSomething.org, made an angel investment in Lantern. Lublin knows Eddy and Ruderman from their previous roles at Crisis Text Line and DoSomething.org, respectively.
She said in an email that Lantern is poised to serve a “huge untapped market. Millennials, in particular, are bound to find Lantern appealing.
“How the heck are people going to deal when their parents and grandparents (fyi: enormous boomer generations) pass away?” wrote Lublin, noting that millennials use digital tools to find everything from roommates to lovers to marijuana. Of course they’d want something similar to help them manage death.
Eddy and Ruderman are aiming to become the first thing anyone turns to when it’s time to grieve a loved one or plan for the end of their own life.
“Our vision is — and always will be — to be the central resource that any one person uses to navigate their life before and after a death,” says Ruderman. “That is our North Star.”
Eddy is buoyed by the possibility that she’s helping others avoid what she experienced following her grandmother’s death: “You don’t have to be forced to pick the first thing you see on Google,” she says.
