Tag: Digital Executor

Planning Process

Planning Process

Eleanore

Although there is no national legal consensus to guide digital estate planning, you can still develop an effective plan in consultation with your attorney. At the very highest level, this process involves the following steps: Completing a digital asset inventory, identifying a digital executor and consulting with an attorney, providing access to your digital assets, providing instructions, and granting authority.

A plan implies an architect, by Sarah Ross photography, CC BY NC 2.0
A plan implies an architect/
Step 1: Complete a digital asset inventory to identify your digital assets

What to include: Examples of items to include are:

    • Hardware: For example, flash drives, US bard drives, digital cameras, backup CDs/DVDs, Computers, iPads, iPods, and other devices.
    • Networking: Router information, wireless network names and passwords
    • Software: For example, financial programs such as Quicken or online software subscription accounts, such as to Adobe Cloud
    • File structures: Information to indicate how and where files are organized on your computers and other storage devices
    • Social networking, social analytics, social curation, sharing, and online reputation management: For example, Facebook, Twitter, HootSuite, Buffer, Pinterest, Scoop.It, Paper.Li Klout, Kred
    • Professional networking: For example, LinkedIn, Plaxo, BizNik
    • Photo sharing and video: For example, Flickr, SmugMug, Shutterfly, Instagram, Vimeo, YouTube, Vine
    • Music streaming and sharing: For example, Spotify and Pandora
    • Media and online entertainment/apps stores: For example, Netflix, iTunes, Google Play, or Windows App store
    • Online presence/personal branding: For example, any websites and associated webmaster/analytics accounts, blogs, online commerce sites (if you run an online business). For example, WordPress, Blogger, Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, About.Me
    • Online backup/file storage: For example, Skydrive, Dropbox, Wikispaces, Box.Net, and Google Drive.
    • Online merchants: For example, Amazon, ebay, iTunes, Nordstrom, Starbucks, or Netflix. Also, any digital subscriptions to local or national newspapers or online magazines.
    • Online gaming/virtual worlds: World of Warcraft, Second Life, XBox
    • Financial planning accounts: This includes banking, retirement, investment, credit card, loan, and insurance accounts that are accessed online.
    • Email accounts
    • Student and library accounts
    • Utility bill accounts that are paid online
    • Travel-related accounts: These could include frequent flyer mileage accounts, and travel planning accounts such as TripIt, as well as travel loyalty/rewards programs such as Hilton Honors.

If you plan to store this information online, companies such as Legacy Locker and SecureSafe provide services for this purpose. For a list of companies and the services that they provide, see The Digital Beyond website’s helpful listing and pages 10 and 11 in Estate Planning in the Digital Age by law professor Gerry Bayer.

Important: Be aware that although online services are helpful as repositories for digital asset information and instructions, it is critical to consult an attorney to ensure that you transfer assets in a legal manner. As Gerry Bayer and Naomi Cahn state:

Clients may have signed up with an on-line asset management company and so be hesitant to address these assets in the estate planning process. Clients may believe the companies’ claims that they will be able to distribute digital assets to beneficiaries or to destroy assets that the client wishes to discontinue on her death. Clients need to understand that the legality of these actions is doubtful. Although these companies can be used to store information, other estate planning methods should be used to transfer assets.

For more information, see When You Pass on, Don’t Leave the Passwords Behind.

Step 2: Identify your digital executor and consult with an attorney

Choosing your digital executor: Your digital executor will carry out your end-of-life wishes for your digital estate. You may want to choose the same executor for your digital and physical assets, choose a different executor for your digital assets, or choose multiple individuals to perform the different tasks required to administer your digital estate. Whichever approach you choose, keep in mind that accessing online accounts and carrying out specific actions such as deleting an account or archiving information, requires technical knowledge and skill. Choose someone who has sufficient experience, is technically proficient, and adept at solving problems should they arise. That person should also be impartial so that they can carry out wishes that may be difficult for less impartial individuals (such as deleting accounts that you want deleted that certain family members may not want to delete for sentimental reasons).

It is important that your digital executor comply with applicable state and federal statutes and Internet service providers’ terms of service agreements. For example, depending on the terms of service of the email provider, if your digital executor accesses your email account without the email provider’s knowledge, that action could violate the providers’ terms of service and constitute identity fraud. Preventing such issues is one reason why it is critical to choose a skilled attorney.

Choosing your attorney: If you already have an estate planning attorney who is also experienced with digital estate planning, this is ideal. If you need help finding an attorney, a reputable bar association-sponsored lawyer referral service may be one option. For information, see the American Bar Association Consumers’ Guide to Legal Help. A high-quality directory of rated lawyers such as Avvo is another option.

Step 3: Provide access to your digital assets

If you have not already done so as part of Step 1, for each digital asset, note the information required to access it. For example, note the name and type of digital asset, and where applicable, the site URL, the user name that you use to sign in/log in to the account, your password, and any answers to secret questions, if required for account logins. If you used an online service when you completed your initial digital asset inventory, you may have entered this information as part of that process.

Step 4: Provide instructions on how to administer your digital assets

Instructions may include:

  • Notifying Facebook friends, Twitter followers, LinkedIn connections, and blog readers that you have passed away or are incapacitated.
  • Deactivating/closing social media profiles, or memorializing them. For example, Facebook and Google both provide ways for appropriate designated individuals to take specific actions as follows:
    • Facebook: Facebook provides an option to memorialize a deceased person’s profile. If you choose this option, this allows for friends to share their memories on your timeline and view content that you choose to share after you pass away or have become incapacitated. It also ensure that your memorialized timeline doesn’t appear in People You May know and other suggestions.
    • Google: In April this year, Google released Inactive Account Manager, which lets you share specific parts of your account data or notify one or more trusted contacts if your account has been inactive for a minimum of three months. The contact will be notified via email and if you choose to share your data, they will be provided with links to download your data, after their identify is verified.
  • Bequeathing information that you may want to be made available to specific people.
  • Closing or continuing websites: Designating someone to maintain or close your blog and perhaps archive important information, if allowable under the Internet service provider’s terms of service.
  • Specifying information that should not be deleted, such as valuable creative works completed or in progress, personally important photos, videos, or other content.
  • Posting a final online message that can be shared with your friends, family, and colleagues (an example of a moving final message is here). For example, you may want a photo album posted or a video. A growing number of online services and applications, such as ifidie, Recollect, and Bcelebrated, provide different ways to create an online legacy.
Step 5: Grant your digital executor(s) authority to administer your digital estate

This step is crucial and where you will want to work closely with your attorney, to ensure that your digital executor is legally authorized to carry out your digital estate planning wishes and he or she does not run afoul of applicable statutes, laws, and terms of service agreements.

Who will get your iTunes when you die?

An electronic immortality

Eleanore

Human fascination with immortality stretches back to the time of Greek mythology with history littered by charlatans, oddballs and megalomaniacs either claiming or seeking the secret to eternal life.

However, the modern tech-savvy generation has discovered, quite by chance, that an immortality of sorts is now freely available via the digital footprint they leave should they meet an untimely end.  It’s estimated that on Facebook alone, more than 30 million accounts belong to people who are deceased.

As if the pain of coping with the death of a loved one isn’t difficult enough, friends and family must now consider the implications of the deceased’s online life to go with their material existence.

Your online footprint
Think for a moment about your own digital presence.  You’ll almost certainly use online banking and shopping facilities, perhaps an online wallet like PayPal, email accounts, a frequent flyer program, a social media presence via Facebook or Twitter, along with potentially thousands of personal files, receipts and photographs.

Most people already understand the importance of estate planning to help pass on worldly goods such as housing, savings and mementos to their beneficiaries.  But how will your heirs even gain access to your computer and your passwords?

Like so many laws relating to the digital world, many are outdated or irrelevant, and several online services have already established their own policies.  For instance, Twitter allows family or friends to download a copy of your public tweets and close your account.  You need to nominate someone in advance to provide their name and contact details, their relationship to you, your Twitter username and a link to or copy of your obituary.

Digital executors
No laws currently exist in Australia to grant a Will’s executor automatic access to someone’s social media accounts.  However, there are still several options available to help decide on how your online legacy is managed.

The first step is to create a Digital Will.  In addition, you will need to select a trustworthy digital executor to handle arrangements for your digital assets and digital legacy once you are gone.  Similarly, if you run your own business, it will have its own digital incarnation and its own digital legacy to maintain.  Some Australian Will makers offer Digital Wills so people can ensure their online legacy lives on – or fades away – in accordance with their wishes.

Online vaults for safe storage
An increasingly popular alternative is to store important documents and passwords in an online vault.  The likes of SecureSafe, Legacy Lockboxor Assets in Order pledge to provide secure online storage of passwords and documents.

Password management accounts can be set up using software such as Norton Identity Safe while Google recently introduced a new program called Inactive Account Manager, which enables you to choose in advance exactly what you wish to have done with all your Google data – from Gmail accounts to YouTube videos.

Considering how much of our communication takes place online these days, it’s worth investing some time thinking about your digital footprint and what is required to manage it when you’re gone.  A good time to do this might be when next reviewing your Wills and Powers of Attorney.  With a little thought and preparation, you can leave a lasting legacy to your loved ones, well beyond photos or videos, and avoid complications associated with your ‘digital immortality’.

O'BRIEN: Thanks to technology, you can stay in touch with loved ones after death

O’BRIEN: Thanks to technology, you can stay in touch with loved ones after death

Eleanore

Imagine getting a notification from your smartphone that you have a text from your father on your birthday.

That’s not a big deal … unless your father had died years ago.

It may sound kind of creepy, but it could be normal in the future.

A company called SwonSong is entering the market of digital legacy solutions. The app will give its users the ability to record and save video clips, audio clips or written messages and schedule when to have them delivered.

Want to wish Junior a happy birthday in 2040 when you’re long gone? You can do that with the app. SwonSong is looking for funding to help finish coding work needed to make it available for iOS and Android devices by the fall.

“I got the idea for the app when I lost my own mother to dementia,” said David Lamonby, one of SwonSong’s co-creators, in a release. “It was heart-breaking to see the person I loved and knew so well gradually fade away and be replaced by another desperately unhappy person. This app would have allowed her to record message when she was healthy and before the illness totally changed her personality and eventually took her from us.”

If this technology had been around in the late 1950s, I may have heard from my father’s dad, who died when my father was just 12 years old. I’ve always been curious about what he sounded like and what kind of personality he had. It would be neat to compare him to my father and see if they have similar quirks. My grandpa Jim would have a spot at my “invite any three people to dinner” question.

Technology makes it easier than ever to reach out to our loved ones in the afterlife. We’ve all seen TV shows or movies where people sit around a lawyer’s office and the lawyer pops in a VHS tape or DVD to hear the dead person read the will to loved ones gathered.

Now, you can just schedule an email, attach your self-made video to a file and save the hassle of going to an office to tell them what they’re getting from you.

Thanks to the explosion of social media websites like Facebook and Twitter, many of us have rather large digital legacies to handle once we die. For many years, a person’s social media accounts were basically frozen when they died. Facebook integrated a “legacy contact” feature in February that lets users designate someone to post a final message and manage the page once the user has died.

Choosing a digital executor in legal wills is a new phenomenon as well. A Harris Poll showed 70 percent of those who responded have no digital executor. More than half of those who had no digital executor didn’t know they needed one, and 39 percent assumed their family could just go in and change their accounts. A little more than half of those with social media accounts said they would want them deleted after death.

I’ll keep my social media going long after I’m gone and schedule videos to be posted to help my friends and family remember me. I’ll even make a special message to have posted if the Cubs win the World Series to congratulate their fans for sticking it out over the centuries.

After death: a technical guide

After death: a technical guide

Eleanore

When approaching the difficult task of accessing websites and online accounts, dealing with it is divided between two options: having the password or not having the password.

  • If you have a password – you can get in
  • If you don’t have a password, but have access to an e-mail account, in most of the websites you could click on “I forgot my password” and a link will be sent by e-mail, to create a new password. Once you have created it, you can get into the website / account
  • If you have neither a password nor access to an e-mail account, the dealings get more complicated, because they involve approaching the online services providers. Some are already set for dealing with death of clients and present clear policies and guidelines in this regard, but some are still grappling with it or have done so until recently. Twitter, for instance, published their policy only in August 2010.

Another element you’ll need to take into consideration is TIME. In certain cases, only a narrow window of time is available through which you could take care of the deceased’s digital legacy:

  • On facebook, for instance, at any moment someone might turn his or her profile into a memorial profile (your consent isn’t required and you’ll find yourselves locked out of the account – even if you have a valid password). Therefore, the first thing I recommend you do is download a copy of the profile’s content (for “how to” scroll down, under “Facebook”).
  • Some of the email services providers might terminate an account which hasn’t been used over a certain period of time, depending on their Terms of Use. Therefore I recommend that if you have the means to do so, go into the email account, just to create some activity and prolong the window during which you can make up your mind.
  • Sometimes you’ll have access to accounts only for a limited amount of time: if the deceased passed away while his / her smartphone / tablet / laptop / computer was still logged on, you would still have access through this device to his or her online accounts. But eventually you’ll be prompted to re-enter the passwords, and when you can’t provide one, you’ll be locked out of these accounts. Therefore, I recommend you take advantage of this access while you have it, and set as many new passwords as you can, to ensure you have independent access to the accounts – at least to begin with. Maybe later on you’ll decide to close the accounts, or not to go into them, but at least you’ll have a choice.

I know you already have so much to handle after the death of a loved one, and maybe his or her digital legacy doesn’t strike you as urgent, but unfortunately, by the time you do get around to dealing with it, it’ll be too late, and invaluable, precious data will be permanently lost – in a way which cannot be restored.
Entrustet used to have a wonderful blog, and in it a “Digital Executor Toolbox” could be found. Unfortunately, when Entrusted was purchased by SecureSafe, the blog went offline, which is a pity. It used to have useful information about how to close online accounts and delete digital assets after the user has passed away. I hope it will go online again. In the meanwhile, I have compiled a list here for your convenience. A click on each link will take you to the relevant page of the online service provider.
International companies (Israeli companies listed below) 

Twitter

“Please note: We are unable to provide login information for the account to anyone regardless of his or her relationship to the deceased.”

Gmail

“If an individual has passed away and you need access to the contents of his or her email account, in rare cases we maybe able to provide the Gmail account content to an authorized representative of the deceased user. …. Any decision to provide the contents of a deceased user’s email will be made only after a careful review, and the application to obtain email content is a lengthy process. Before you begin, please understand that Google may be unable to provide the Gmail account content….”

YouTube

Between the time I wrote this post as a draft and print-screened this page and the time I published this post, YouTube took their policy offline. Right now there isn’t an online policy regarding a deceased YouTube member’s account. I’ve sent YouTube a query about this and will update this post once I have news.

Hotmail

“The Microsoft Next of Kin process allows for the release of Hotmail contents, including all emails and their attachments, address book, and Messenger contact list, to the next of kin of a deceased or incapacitated account holder and/or closure of the Hotmail account, following a short authentication process. We cannot provide you with the password to the account or change the password on the account, and we cannot transfer ownership of the account to the next of kin. Account contents are released by way of a data DVD which is shipped to you.”

Linkedin 

“To close the account of a deceased LinkedIn member you’ll need to submit a Verification of Death form. Note: This form requires an email address registered to the deceased member’s account. Without this important piece of information, we will not be able to address your request.”

Myspace

This used to be MySpace’s policy, but they updated it in July 2012:

“We will only remove or preserve the profile of a deceased user at the request of the next of kin or at the request of the executor of the estate. Myspace will not allow access or update the log-in information for a profile for any circumstance… However, if you have access to the email account tied to the Myspace profile, you can retrieve the password by clicking www.myspace.com/auth/resetpassword“.

Facebook

“In order to protect the privacy of the deceased user, we cannot provide login information for the account to anyone.”
My advice is: if you have access to the Facebook account of your loved one who passed away, the first thing you should do is download a copy of it (General Account Settings > Download a copy). If someone were to notify Facebook that the account owner has passed away, Facebook will block all access to the profile and you will not be able to get in – even if you do have the password. Facebook’s policy is controversial: anyone can notify that a person has passed away, not just members of his immediate family. Hence, the spouse / child / parent might suddenly find themselves with the profile turning into a deceased person’s profile, without their request. Once a profile is “memorized”, as they call it, only friends can see it and locate it in search results see update below, and some of the content disappears while some of it remains – and you have no control over it. Very little information is required in order to report someone as gone: Report a Deceased Person’s Profile

The only right reserved to members of his / her immediate family is to ask for the profile to be deleted: How do I submit a special request for a deceased user’s account on the site? and then “If you are an immediate family member and would like to request that we remove your loved one’s account from the site, click here“.

In February 2014 Facebook changed their policy in two regards:

  1. Following John Berlin’s appeal to see the ‘Look Back’ video of his deceased son, Jesse Berlin, Facebook now allows members of a deceased user to watch his or her ‘Look Back’ video. Please note: a request to see a Look Back video of a user who passed away equals a request to memoralize the account, even if this wasn’t your intention, so please make sure you understand the consequences of your act before making this request. If you are certain you wish for his or her account to be momoralized, or if the account is already memoralized, you can make the request here. Thank youDamien McCallig for highlighting this point.
  2. Facebook took this opportunity to also change the privacy settings of memoralized accounts: from now on, the content will remain visible as the owner defined it while he/she was still alive. Meaning: if certain content was made visible publiclicly, it will remain so. If certain content was made visible to friends of friends, it will remain so – unlike what the policy was up until now: that once an account was memoralized, all the content was visible to friends only.

A word about Facebook‘s policy of memorializing an account: Of course this is very personal, but I think and feel it is better to keep “running into” my dead brother’s profile on Facebook as if he were still alive, than to have his profile declared as a profile of a dead person. I do not wish for certain content out of his profile to disappear, as it will disappear without any of us having a say about what stays and what disappears – it is determined by Facebook’s policy only.

Ever since my brother was killed, he has received hundreds of friendship requests, and as far as I can tell, all are by people who realize he is dead. I am puzzled by this: Is it their initiative, or in response to Facebook suggesting him as a possible friend? Is it their way of showing their respect to him? Their way of expressing their sorrow over missing out the opportunity to be his friends while he was still alive? Do they expect their request of friendship to be accepted? Is there a bit of voyeurism in it – to see which content they will be granted access to as friends, that they couldn’t see before? How would they feel if “he” will suddenly approve their request, since it will be clear it was not done by him but by a family member?

Since approving a friendship request grants access to certain content which only friends can see, I feel no one has the right or authority to approve friendship requests but the deceased.

Israeli Companies 
None of the Israeli companies publish their policy regarding death of a client online. I gathered the following information from each one as a service to the readers of this blog.
Walla!
Walla! will grant you the password to the mailbox as soon as you follow their clear policy in this regard. Email them at: support@walla.net.il and ask for a copy of their instructions in English (In a nutshell, you will need to provide both proof of death and proof of your relation to the deceased). You should contact them as soon as you can: an e-mail account that hasn’t been used in 3 months might be closed by the company.
012 Smile 
Unfortunately, there is no point in contacting this company. They will only grant access to the e-mail under court order. Contact your lawyer instead.
Bezeq International 
You can notify Bezeq International someone has passed away either by phone: *3014 or by chat with a customer service representative. You will only need to supply the ID number and the last fourdigits of the method of payment of the deceased, and they will give you the e-mail password. You will need to provide a copy of a death certificate, oddly enough, not in order to gain access to the e-mail account, but in order to receive a refund for unused Internet services.
If you wish to keep the e-mail active, you can do so: the first 6 months for free, and from the 7th months onward by paying 9.90 NIS per month.
TheMarker Cafe
You can notify TheMarker Cafe by phone 03-5133697 or e-mail support@themarker.com, but they will only grant access to the account under court order.
013 Netvision
You can notify Netvision by phone: *3013 or by e-mail service@netvision.net.il. As soon as you present a copy of the death certificate, ID number and last four digits of method of payment, you will be granted full access to all the services the deceased was subscribed to – including e-mail and cloud backup. This is relevant however only if they had a private account. If they had a business account, only the owner of the company can contact Netvision, or the person registered at Netvision as the contact person for the company the deceased person worked for.
Tapuz 
You will have to have a Hebrew speaking person next to you, as Tapuz can only be contacted by a Hebrew form in their website. They will only assist you in gaining access to the account if you have access to the e-mail address that the person who passed away registered with. If you don’t, they will assist you only if there is a legal cause for it, or under court order.
Isra-Blog
Isra-Blog is part of Nana10 and can be notified about a death of a blogger by e-mail: israblog@nana10.co.il. They don’t have a consistent policy: in some cases, the blog will be taken offline. In other cases, a family member will be granted access to it – depending, among other factors, on the family wishes.
Nana10 
You can contact Nana10 by e-mail support@nana10.co.il, but access to the mailbox will only be granted under court order.
What is so frustrating about the long, complex dealings with the various Internet providers and their different policies – which includes heartache and helplessness – is that the people left behind after the death could have easily been spared all that – if only the deceased had left their usernames and passwords behind. They could have accessed their accounts without the provider ever knowing the user was dead. Several products (some of them for free) offer this exact service: keeping track of websites, user names and passwords, along with instructions of who may access what, are detailed in this post: Managing Your Digital Legacy.