Industry call for clarity on digital legacies

New powers over what happens to digital legacies upon death have been called for by solicitors and legal academics.

Suggesting a need for digital assets to be contained within wills, the debate was brought to the media’s attention after a recent legal decision in Germany. Centring on a young girl who had recently died, the court ruled that her parents did not have the right to access her Facebook account.

Solicitor Sarah Nettleship from our Private Client team highlighted the difficulties surrounding this issue, given that websites will tend to operate across several jurisdictions.

Sarah stated, “It is unlikely that a change of law in any one jurisdiction would assist families in their request for access.”

The full article is available online, first published by The Law Society Gazette on the 7 June 2017: Industry call for clarity on digital legacies