Insight
Publish date
9 August 2024
Lifetime planning for digital assets
Nowadays, we all have multiple online accounts, logins and passwords we use daily. But what will happen to these when we die? Some companies have already made provision for this, but others don’t address the issue. Virtually none of them make arrangements for future incapacity.
The simplest way for you to address this is to keep an up to date log of all your online accounts, which will allow your personal representatives or a trusted person to deal with those accounts. You should not share those details during your lifetime. It is not clear that attorneys (if you lose capacity) are entitled in the same way to access your online accounts although some service providers would allow this. As well as preparing a digital assets log, some social media and online accounts allow you to plan for your death.
Google (including Gmail, Google Drive and Google Play)
Google gives you the option to nominate an Inactive Account Manager. Whoever you nominate can access your information and delete your account after you die.
Google is aware that many people will not nominate someone. In that case, Google will work with immediate family members and personal representatives to close accounts belonging to a deceased user. In some circumstances they will also share content, such as images, from a deceased user’s account.
Microsoft (including Outlook, Hotmail and OneDrive)
There is no option to nominate a Legacy Contact in advance. Outlook and OneDrive accounts will automatically be frozen after a year of inactivity, and Microsoft accounts will be deleted after two years of inactivity.
Active subscriptions can be stopped by freezing or closing any bank accounts or cards from which payments are taken.
It’s not possible to get access to the accounts without a court order.
Yahoo
Rights to the accounts terminate on death, and the accounts may be deleted after 12 months of inactivity. The only way for account contents to be accessed via Yahoo is for personal representatives with an Irish court order (as the company is registered in Ireland).
Apple (access to App Store, Apple Music, FaceTime and iCloud)
Apple allows you to add a Legacy Contact, which is the simplest way to give someone you trust access to the data you have stored in your Apple account. Your legacy contact will be given a unique access key, and by using this combined with a death certificate they can make a request for access.
If no Legacy Contact is nominated, it is possible to request access with a court order, or through some other forms of legal documentation, but this is a lengthy and costly process.
Facebook is one of the best performers in this area, and gives you two options.
First, you can elect to have your account deleted after you die. Choosing this option means that once Facebook is aware of your death, your entire profile, including all posts and photos, is immediately deleted. The photos and posts are not retrievable, and this action cannot be reversed.
If you don’t elect for the account to be deleted, then Facebook allows you to set a legacy contact in your lifetime. Once Facebook is notified of your death, the account is memorialised and at that point, the nominated legacy contact is given permission to make posts and update the account’s profile and cover photos.
The legacy contact is not able to do any of the following:
- Log into the account
- Read private messages
- Remove friends or make new friends requests
- Add another legacy contact to the account.
If you don’t do anything during your lifetime, then as soon as Facebook is notified of your death, the account is memorialised, and nobody is able to make posts or update the account.
Instagram has no option similar to Facebook’s legacy contact system so it’s not possible to determine who can access the account in advance. Instead there is a system in place to report a death to Instagram, which then allows close family members to memorialise the account, or personal representatives or close family members may choose to delete it.
X (Twitter)
There is nothing account holders can currently do in advance to nominate somebody to deal with the account. Accounts can only be deactivated, not memorialised but may also be removed due to inactivity (this could be as short as a month). There is no provision for access to the account contents by close family or personal representatives.
There is again no option to nominate a legacy contact during lifetime, but LinkedIn will work with personal representatives who can request that the account either be memorialised, or closed.
Someone who is not authorised to act on behalf of the estate can still report a death to LinkedIn. The account will then be hidden, meaning it is no longer searchable or visible. The account could still be memorialised, or closed, in the future.
Dropbox
Accounts will automatically be deleted if they are inactive for longer than 12 months, but if you have a family plan the account will remain open as long as other members of the plan continue to use it. In the absence of that, personal representatives can provide Dropbox with a death certificate, a court order showing that they are entitled to deal with your estate and other information requested by Dropbox, who may then grant access to the account.
TikTok
TikTok does not provide a memorialisation feature. Instead, family and friends are able to contact TikTok with proof of death such as a death certificate to close the account and hide its content.
Digital Asset Logs
As the name implies, a digital asset log is a record of all your digital accounts, and the relevant login details.
A digital asset log will only be useful if it is kept up to date, and stored somewhere it can be accessed after your death or incapacity. Set yourself a reminder to update it regularly, at least every six months. You can keep it on paper, or in a password protected document, but ensure that a trusted person knows how to access it after your death or incapacity.
An alternative to a paper list or password protected document might be to use an online password manager. There are many available, and they help you to generate secure passwords and access accounts during your lifetime, but also have the ability for you to create an emergency contact, who would be able to access the account and all its data in certain circumstances such as death, or inactivity. Again you would need to ensure that the password manager is kept up to date, and also that your nominated contact knows which password manager you have used.
You can find an example of a paper version of a digital assets log here.
If you would like to find out more about planning for your digital assets please get in touch.
