Addressing Digital Assets in End-of-life Planning
If you were to list all of your online accounts, you may be surprised by the number. Think about your bank and household accounts, gaming, social media, cloud storage for photos and other documents, music and movie streaming services, and email. Do you have an online business or blog? And what about frequent flyer miles, PayPal, or rewards cards? Your online presence is probably more significant than you realize.
Increasingly, our lives are being conducted online. We store our memories online, conduct our finances online, interact socially, and it’s where we work. We are just beginning to realize that our online presence will not just outlive our physical presence; it will take on a life of its own. What will happen to all of these online accounts – called digital assets – when we die?
Your digital assets may or may not be of a great financial value, but they do need protection against exploitation as well as abandonment. Anyone with any digital assets must make a plan for them just like any other asset in end-of-life planning.
Social media and email accounts
Facebook has a legacy contact feature for its users, which means you can appoint a custodian for your page after you are gone. Your legacy contact will be able to respond to friend requests, change your cover photo and profile picture, and write a notice of your memorial service or funeral. He or she will not be permitted to login with your password or username, read messages sent to you, or modify your account settings. Alternately, you can simply tell Facebook that you would like to have your account immediately deleted upon your death.
Google has an Inactive Account Manager option that will let you leave instructions for what should be done with your Google Drive docs or Gmail account upon your death.
As for LinkedIn, a loved one fills out an online form on behalf of the deceased, which is reviewed by LinkedIn pursuant to getting in touch with that person. The notifying person will need to supply your name, profile URL, email address, and date of death plus information on the company you last worked for and a link to your obituary.
Twitter handles accounts of the deceased similarly to LinkedIn. It can also remove images in your account per request. A Twitter account is frozen at death, with access barred to everyone, including immediate family.
With social sites like Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat growing in popularity, and new sites seemingly introduced every day, it’s important to 1) understand what happens to these accounts after prolonged inactivity and 2) keep your online account list up-to-date. Include the web address for the account, login name, password, and answers to security questions for each. Keep this information with your other estate planning information so your trustee or executor can access the accounts after your death.
Computer files
Your executor or trustee should be provided with the location of your computers, tablets, e-readers, and mobile phones along with the passwords to them if password protection is set. The location of backups may also be important. Annual fees for antivirus programs and website hosting may no longer need to be paid.
E-commerce accounts
Most of us have eBay, iTunes, or PayPal accounts, all with monetary value. Even more important, these accounts can serve as pathways to our banking and credit card information. What if your idle e-commerce account is hacked after your death? What if the account balance is drained or the cyber-criminal uses the account to go on a shopping spree? What if your username and password is stolen and used at other websites you have accessed? These what-ifs need to be considered – and addressed during your lifetime and in your end-of-life plan.
Domain names
How can you keep a website or blog going after you die? One way is to pay for a decade (or more) of hosting or domain name ownership with such URL longevity in mind, and letting your trustee or executor know just how to renew the agreement. Only that trustee or executor should have access to that knowledge – unless you want business partners or a future owner to know how the arrangements work.
Amend your will or trust
Language regarding your digital assets is essential. At the very least, you want to tell your executor or trustee where digital assets are stored. Even better, the amendment should give your executor or trustee the authority to administer, archive, alter, or destroy digital assets in addition to the power to direct them to heirs or other named beneficiaries. That means turning over your online passwords to your executor or trustee at your death, or having them access password management software used to create them.
Many digital accounts are subject to complicated terms of service agreements, which can often make it difficult or impossible for surviving loved ones to access them. Additionally, state and federal laws could put friends and relatives who try to log on to your accounts at risk of violating anti-hacking and privacy statutes.
Initiatives are under way to put more consumer-friendly laws in place regarding digital assets. Until then, though, it’s important to incorporate detailed directions and information surrounding your digital assets into your end-of-life plan.
