Tag: Online services

The great digital beyond

The great digital beyond

Eleanore

A friend recently told me of the challenge she faced sorting through her aging parents’ belongings to prepare their home for sale.

Her father had died years ago and her 94-year-old mother had been living in an assisted-care facility for more than a year. Most of the items of sentimental or personal value had already been distributed to her siblings. What remained were her parents’ personal archives — letters, photos, employment/financial/legal/health records, all tangible, physical objects that, once gone, would be gone forever.

In the internet age, personal archives are no longer limited to the tangible. In fact, much of one’s personal archives is now digital — emails, texts, photos, videos and social media accounts. And there’s a lot more content generated and stored than ever before. Some is saved on personal storage space, such as a computer hard drive. Other material lives in the cloud in services like Facebook, Google Mail and YouTube. In most cases, that content is protected by some kind of password.

So what becomes of all of that information when someone dies? Does it remain online forever? Can it be altered, deleted or downloaded, and if so, by whom? And how do these digital artifacts represent your life and legacy?

These questions inspired Evan Carroll and John Romano to create the website thedigitalbeyond.com to address these needs and concerns. Together they wrote the book “Your Digital Afterlife” in 2011. Since that time an entire industry has emerged to help people plan for managing their digital legacy. Thedigitalbeyond.com lists dozens of such online services. Some are free while others are fee-based.

Knotifyme.com, for example, “answers the question, ‘What happens to all my online accounts if I get amnesia, Alzheimer’s or if I leave from this world?’ With knotify.me you set future notifications to be sent to your family and beloved people or to yourself, ensuring that nothing of your digital life will be wasted (and) transfers your online property/heritage (urls, domain names, e-mail & social network accounts, etc.) to whomever you wish to continue it in the future!” You can sign up for this free service through your Facebook, Twitter or Google accounts. In short, according to its tagline, Knotifyme.com “manages your digital heritage.”

To address financial matters, consider Legacyarmour.com, which describes itself as “a secure asset protection platform where you organize your important information in encrypted vaults, and …. automatically deliver it to your designated recipients on a scheduled date, or in case of your death or incapacitation.” It is a fee-based membership service with different levels of coverage and prices depending on what you want.

The rapid growth of the web has outpaced the law in the realm of the digital afterlife. It wasn’t until 2015 that the Uniform Law Commission, a nongovernment organization, created the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA). It has since been adopted by 40 states and been introduced in five more this year. As its name suggests, RUFADAA “allows fiduciaries to manage digital property like computer files, web domains, and virtual currency, but restricts a fiduciary’s access to electronic communications such as email, text messages, and social media accounts unless the original user consented in a will, trust, power of attorney, or other record.”

Some online services have their own policies for providing access to a person’s account after he or she dies. Facebook allows users to designate a “Legacy Contact” who is legally permitted to enter someone’s account to post, respond to friend requests, and update profile and cover photos. The Legacy Contact may also be given the power to download an archive of the photos, posts and profile information in that account. Facebook users can also simply opt to have their account permanently deleted after their death. Google offers an Inactive Account Manager feature that allows users to share parts of their account data or notify someone if they’ve been inactive for a certain period of time.

One important and often repeated piece of advice is to never put usernames and passwords for any online accounts in your will, as it becomes a public record once it is entered into a probate court file.

It is never too soon to start estate planning, whether it be for tangible assets or digital ones. It may be well worth your time to investigate the policy options of your online account services and perhaps even avail yourself of some of the many digital afterlife services available today.

Cerise Oberman, SUNY Distinguished Librarian Emeritus, retired as dean of Library & Information Services at SUNY Plattsburgh. She can be reached at cerise.oberman@plattsburgh.edu. Tim Hartnett is associate librarian at SUNY Plattsburgh, Reach him at tim.hartnett@plattsburgh.edu.

Digital Estates - Why you should plan your online legacy

Digital Estates – Why you should plan your online legacy

Eleanore

Despite the ever-growing role of social media and online services in people’s lives, they often neglect to include their digital estates in their estate planning. This can lead to headaches and complications for heirs during an already difficult time, and raises the question of who inherits the digital data. Leaving instructions and information about a digital estate can help to avoid many issues surrounding this still rather new but important reality.

With more and more people using the internet to tweet, email, manage their bank accounts and make purchases, many records, photos and important business documents are now saved on remote servers instead of being kept in a filing cabinet or a shoebox. Keeping track of one’s own online activities and the many passwords that are created over decades can be challenging enough. For heirs, the problem is even more complex. Not only do they often not have the passwords to a deceased’s accounts, they usually have little to no idea of the extent of a deceased’s online activities.

More than just a Facebook profile
Digital estates consist of digital assets, digital devices and digital accounts. Digital assets are data in all formats, including emails, documents, audio, video, and social media and networking content. Digital devices are the electronic devices such as laptops and smartphones used for this data. The third element, digital accounts, are electronic systems for dealing with information. These provide access to digital assets and include email accounts, social networks, and online banking and shopping accounts.

When a person dies, it is important to identify and secure digital estates quickly in order to prevent fraud and loss, as well as protect the privacy and personal history of the deceased.

Who inherits a digital estate?
Legislation in most countries has failed to keep pace with technological developments, leading to uncertainty as to how digital estates should be passed on to heirs. In Switzerland, for example, digital data is not specifically regulated. It can therefore not be assumed that heirs will automatically inherit data into their ownership, and there is no legal basis upon which to request that data be released or profiles deleted. Further to this, much data are covered by the right to privacy. Although this usually expires when a person dies, it can again be difficult for the deceased’s family to claim entitlement to the data or have it deleted. Also, even if heirs have passwords to digital accounts, it can be considered a breach of the terms and conditions to log in with them if no prior arrangements have been made.

This problem is compounded by the fact that many internet platform providers and social media companies are based abroad. As a result, the legal relationships with users often come under foreign jurisdiction, which means that any request relating to data must, in addition to the estate’s own law, be verified under foreign law. Further to this, data is subject to the terms and conditions of the individual providers. These differ greatly from one provider to the next, and in the absence of precise instructions from users, default provisions tend to be applied.

For individuals resident in Switzerland for example, the situation is clearer for data stored on digital devices: these are inherited along with the device. Heirs of such devices also inherit any assets such as credit balances on PayPal or Bitcoin accounts. Data that are protected by copyright, such as computer programs, or photos with artistic value, can also be inherited.

Simple solutions for complex problems
Many platforms, such as Facebook and Gmail, allow users to give instructions in the event of their death. This enables a person to determine how they want their accounts and data handled. In practice, however, few people provide such instructions. And even if they do, they have only addressed one segment of their digital estate. In addition to giving such instructions, there are other measures that can be taken.

Managing one’s passwords is one way to ensure that heirs who are to be granted access can do so readily. This requires maintaining a secured, up-to-date list of accounts, user IDs and passwords for all databases and profiles. Another option is to incorporate access into a will: users can nominate an heir or other person to handle their digital estate and specify what is to happen to the data. This can include a separate list of the services used and the passwords for each of these. And finally, special legal authorisations such as an advanced care directive can simplify the desired handling of digital data in the event of incapacity.

These precautions will save heirs time and energy when confronted with this growing issue, and help ensure the deceased’s digital legacy will live on according to their wishes.

McBride: Digital estate planning

McBride: Digital estate planning

Eleanore

What happens to your digital property when you die? This can be a very challenging issue for your executor when settling your estate.

You can make your executor’s job easier by listing all the electronic devices and online services that you use. With a letter of direction, you can tell your executor what should happen to them after you die.

Inventory

Use an address book or worksheet to alphabetically list your devices and online accounts. Then tell your executor where to find your list. User names and passwords on your inventory list are the keys to open the doors to your electronic devices and keep online accounts active.

Remember that Canada’s privacy laws make it difficult for your executor to take over the online accounts of another person. When you sign up for an online account, the terms of service agreement restricts access to the account-holder only. That means you cannot bequeath your social media account, video game account, or gambling account to a beneficiary even if they have great value.

In the U.S., many states have created laws to give an executor the right to access and manage digital assets of a dead person. No similar laws have been enacted in Canada yet. Until our laws are updated and service providers change their policies, Canadians can include clauses in their wills that give executors permission to deal with digital assets.

Email

Your executor can browse your email messages to track down estate assets. Email messages give clues about bills to be paid. Email reminders to download T5 and T4RIF slips can lead to financial accounts. Your emails will reveal confirmations of business, gaming, streaming and shopping transactions.

Online business

Maybe you have YouTube videos or a blog that generates advertising revenue. If you are receiving thousands of dollars per month in payments from ad clicks, your executor would want to maintain that revenue stream.

Do you own a valuable domain name? Remind your executor to pay the fee to renew the registration until the domain name is sold.

Electronic devices

Your executor should find all your electronic hardware such as smartphones, tablets or laptop computers. Keep these devices and safeguard them until data can be extracted. Once all online accounts have been closed or transferred, electronic devices can be stripped and passed along with other estate assets.

Social media

After you have died, your executor can access and delete your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts by knowing your passwords. What if the family wants continued access to their loved one’s online photos and personal messages? Social media websites will eventually take steps to protect privacy as a standard security procedure.

Facebook allows family members to either delete or “memorialize” the accounts of a deceased user. In a memorialized account, a person’s existing friends network can leave comments and photos but nobody has permission to log in or edit the account.

Music, e-books and photos

Who gets your collection of digital photos and videos in online cloud storage and social media sites after you die? Some digital assets cannot be legally bequeathed to anyone. You pay for a personal licence to use digital files, such as iTunes music and e-books. These personal rights expire when the user dies.

Even if you bequeath your iPad to a family member, you cannot bequeath the apps you have purchased and installed on your iPad.

Identity theft

Thieves can use a dead person’s information to create a fake identity to rack up credit card charges and apply for loans. Your executor can safeguard the estate by notifying credit agencies of the death.

Terry McBride, a member of Advocis, works with Raymond James Ltd. The views of the author do not necessarily reflect those of Raymond James Ltd. Information is from sources believed reliable but cannot be guaranteed. This is provided for information only. We recommend that clients seek independent advice from a professional adviser on tax-related matters. Securities offered through Raymond James Ltd., member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund. Insurance services offered through Raymond James Financial Planning Ltd., not a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund.

Make sure your online accounts get deleted when you die

Make sure your online accounts get deleted when you die

Eleanore
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Sarah Jacobsson Purewal/CNET

Not everyone wants to leave this earth with their online accounts being managed by relatives and next-of-kin, or just floating around on the Internet forever. If you’re the kind of person who likes your privacy — even in death — you should probably make some plans to have all of your online and social media accounts nuked when you pass away.

Some services, such as Google and Facebook, let you set up your eventual account deletion before you get anywhere close to death. Other services will keep your account forever unless an immediate family member or the executor of your estate requests it be removed. Here’s how to make sure all your loose ends are tied up, and that nobody ever gets hold of your top-secret/possibly incriminating emails and Twitter direct messages.

Google

Google’s Inactive Account Manager lets you choose what happens to your account when it becomes inactive for a certain period of time. You can set up the Inactive Account Manager to delete your Google account and all products associated with that account, including Gmail, Blogger, AdSense, and YouTube.

To set this up, log in to your Google account and go to this page. You will need to provide Google with a phone number for alerts — Google will send a message to this number before your account times out, so you know your account is about to become inactive. You will then need to select a timeout period (3 months, 6 months, 9 months, one year, 15 months, or 18 months).

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Sarah Jacobsson Purewal/CNET

Then, under Optionally delete account, turn on Delete my account. Click Enable to turn the Inactive Account Manager on, and you’re set. If you fail to log in to your account for the timeout period you selected, Google will delete your Google account and all data associated with it.

Facebook

Facebook is one of few online services that lets you set a legacy contact — someone who can manage parts of your account and memorialize your page — for when you die. Facebook also lets you delete your account when you die (though it doesn’t use inactivity to determine that you’ve passed away).

To make sure your Facebook account is deleted when you die, open Facebook and go to Settings > Security > Legacy Contact. Check the box next to Account Deletion.

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Sarah Jacobsson Purewal/CNET

You will see a pop-up box asking if you really want to delete your account in the future. Click Delete After Death and then re-enter your Facebook password to save your changes. Your account will now be deleted when Facebook is notified of your death — this means that if anybody tries to memorialize your page, it will be deleted instead of memorialized.

Use a digital legacy service

Google and Facebook give you the power to delete your account when you die, but many sites and services — such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Microsoft, and Yahoo — do not. These sites will delete the account of a deceased person at the request of an immediate family member or the executor of an estate (by the way, you can and should delineate how you want your digital life to be handled in your last will and testament). If you want to take full control, you can use a digital legacy services like Perpetu.

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Perpetu is an online service that covers Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, Flickr, LinkedIn and GitHub. You connect your accounts to Perpetu, and then you outline your final wishes for each service — for example, you can request that Perpetu delete certain emails from your Gmail account, delete tweets and direct messages from Twitter, or delete files from your Dropbox account.

The service can’t really delete actual accounts, but it can delete data and leave final updates for your friends and family to see. Perpetu’s service kicks in when the company receives a report of your death from a trusted contact with your reporting code, so it’s still a good idea to put this in your will.

E-Mortality Or Controlling From Beyond The Grave?

E-Mortality Or Controlling From Beyond The Grave?

Eleanore

Are online services for sending messages after death a first step towards immortality, or an unfair way of refusing to relinquish control even from beyond the grave?

I was surprised to discover recently that there is a huge industry dedicated to offering “digital death and online afterlife” services, which include everything from dealing with your digital estate to leaving posthumous (and sometimes post-dated) messages to recording your own obituary. Digital estate planning is certainly a vital service that none of us can ignore, but many of the other services offered filled me with dismay.

Am I the only one who thinks that perhaps once we’re in our grave, even the most controlling of control freaks should learn to let go? That writing your own obituary misses the point? It seems to me that if you can’t trust someone else to write your obituary, perhaps you didn’t live your life the way you thought you did.

I also think that doing it all yourself is a bit unfair on your loved ones. Delivering a eulogy or choosing the right verse to engrave on a tombstone creates a space for memory. It encourages the mourners to articulate their loss, to talk about their loved one, to find a way to express all that they loved or admired in that person. Although these activities bring pain and heartache, they are also therapeutic for those who are grieving. Having to write a eulogy or organize a tombstone gives the mourners something relevant and meaningful to do at a time of sadness and uncertainty. It seems a shame to take that opportunity away.

It’s more than that, though. I feel that these digital legacy planners who write their own obituaries and dictate how they are to be remembered chip away at the importance of memory. I’ll give you an example. Recently, a friend of ours was suddenly and tragically killed in a car accident. In the hours after he passed away, his friends and family shared memories of him on social media. Organically and spontaneously, the same theme kept coming up again and again. A multi-dimensional picture of a caring, loving, friendly man became clearer and sharper with every story shared and memory remembered. It was a true reflection of who he was, and I think there was a measure of comfort in seeing it appear. If he had left a message telling us that reaching out to other people had always mattered most to him, it would not have brought the same comfort (or, I think, have been as meaningful) as the shared experience of friends and family sharing that same conclusion.

I have to admit that it bothers me that some of these websites are trying to vanquish death by offering e-mortality. Websites likeToLovedOnes, which encourages you to send written or video messages to your loved ones in the future, promising to deliver them at the right time. TheVoiceLibrary, which guarantees that your voice will be preserved for future generations. Or LifeNaut, a service that allows you to “create interactive avatars, upload content, and even a DNA sample so that you can create a free back-up of [your] mind and genetic code.” There has even been a TED talk that suggests that soon we could live forever on social media as a digital version of ourselves, which stores all our likes and dislikes, characteristics, and personality quirks so that we can eternally post and tweet on Twitter and Facebook (which might sound like purgatory to many of us). But everyone who knows some fairy tales knows that no one ever wins when they try to vanquish death.

Before you tell me that I’m being unfair, I acknowledge that everyone who has lost a loved one wishes that they could hear their voice one more time, talk to them, be with them once more. If we were given the chance to see our partner once again, to hear a parent’s voice or to share something with a friend, we’d probably all take it. It’s a human desire and an entirely understandable one. It is painful to say goodbye to a man or woman we love, but we all know that the alternative is to live in the past.

In the final book in the famous Harry Potter series, Rowling writes about the Resurrection Stone. It’s a stone which can bring people back to life, and in the legend which Rowling weaves, it was created when a wizard asked Death for a way to bring back the girl he had loved who had died young. The Stone brings his lover back to him, but she is a living ghost. The wizard could see her and hear her and talk with her every day, but he couldn’t connect with her. Eventually his inability to build a deeper relationship with her brought him to such a depression that he killed himself.

It seems to me that these digital afterlife sites are like Rowling’s Resurrection Stone. They promise us control from beyond the grave, but it’s all just a hologram. Online or offline, all we can do is live honestly, love deeply, and trust that those we leave behind will do the same.

This article first appeared on Staje.org