How to prepare your digital life for your inevitable death

Death is a must-pass path in life. Although we are unwilling to face it, we must all be prepared for it. You may have planned the distribution of your property and material inheritance behind you, but don't forget that you still have a large number of digital assets that need to be properly arranged. Start planning the future of these accounts now!

"It's amazing how many people don't realize how much digital assets they have," said Mark Parthemer, managing director and senior trust consultant at Bessemer Trust. "Many clients are concerned about the financial side, but they also need to protect assets with emotional value, such as photos."

Parthemer recommends that you start by listing digital assets that your family may need to access after you die. This includes financial accounts, as well as photos and videos stored online, digital notes, emails, social media accounts, mobile phones, and even your contact list. (Otherwise, how do they tell all your friends this message?)

In some cases, you can simply print out the necessary information—such as a contact list—and it's done. But at other times, the account you need to process contains a lot of data, or is updated frequently, and a simple paper copy won't meet the needs. Here are the things you need to do now to ensure your family can access your information after you die.

Specify trust contact

Some services have built-in features that allow you to pass data to your living family. You can identify loved ones you trust and these digital services will allow them to access your account – but only in certain circumstances.

For example, Google's inactive account manager allows you to decide what happens after your account is idle for a while (the default setting takes effect after three months, but you can adjust it as needed). If your account remains inactive during this period, the contacts you specify – you can choose up to 10 people – will get permission to download any data you pre-allowed.

In my case, I have allowed my wife to access my calendar, contacts, emails, photos, YouTube videos, and archives of documents stored in Google services. If you want to keep the privacy of certain data after your death, you can choose to provide less access to information—for example, only your contact information and photos. Once you have decided on what you want to share, you can set your account to automatically delete after your trusted friends get the archive.

Similarly, Facebook allows you to specify estate contacts. After your death, your profile will become a memorial material, and the estate contact has the right to post a fixed post, reply to new friend requests, and update profile pictures or photos. They can also download a copy of your Facebook data. However, this person cannot log in to your account or read your messages.

Other services may contain content that you do not specifically own but have access to. For example, movies you buy on iTunes, video games you buy from Steam, or books you have on your Kindle.

"Normally, these licenses expire when you die, but not always," Parthemer said. “For example, Apple has been generous – surviving spouses or family members can continue to use their iTunes account using the deceased’s Apple ID.”

That is, your living relatives are unable to merge your old license with their own account, which makes things a hassle. It may be easier to enable the feature if the related services provide home sharing capabilities—such as iTunes, Steam, Kindle, etc. With Family Sharing, your family members’ accounts can access your content whether you are alive or dead.

Prepare to share your password

Unfortunately, not all companies offer functionality that allows you to pass data. For companies that don’t offer this feature, or do not offer enough granular control, the best way is to consult an estate lawyer to learn how to authorize your close relatives to your account.

Just writing your password on a piece of paper is not always enough. In many cases, your relatives are still prohibited from accessing your account without express permission. Thankfully, 41 states have passed laws that allow you to declare who has access to which data—as long as you “include a clause in a will or revocable trust and your authorization,” Parthemer said. “Communicate with your advisory team to decide the scope of access.” Maybe you want them to see which emails you sent, but don’t want them to see your email content. Give them access enough information to discover any assets you may have forgotten, such as an old cryptocurrency wallet.

Now that your will allows your loved ones to access your account, you need to provide some password. Parthemer said it was much more difficult than it sounded. "Passwords are constantly changed, new accounts are constantly created, so it's difficult to keep a current list of all accounts and passwords. But there are companies that deal with password storage and after-death digital asset management."

For example, LastPass (the password manager we recommend several times) allows you to send a specific password to other users when you die. Simply click Emergency Access in the sidebar of the extension to set it up.

Before you start preparing for death, take some time to think about who you can entrust your digital life to. In Parthemer's words, "Think seriously about who will be responsible for these digital assets. For example, in some families, the first person will be designated as the person who manages financial assets and other things, but this person may not be good at technology. So maybe a second person should be appointed as the trustee of the digital assets."

When you make an estate plan, you need to specify who should be responsible for what to do in order to give full play to everyone’s strengths. A good estate attorney can make sure the wording is clear so that your friends and family don’t have to do extra work when they are sad.

The above is the detailed content of How to prepare your digital life for your inevitable death. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!