How safe is your digital legacy?

Most people know that preparing a will is the way to ensure your estate is dealt with according to your wishes after you die, but that deals with fixed assets and traditional affairs.

With computers and the internet now permeating almost every part of our lives, increasing numbers of people also have possessions to pass on that exist only in digital form.

The problem is that while it’s easy to bequeath someone a treasured box of vinyl LPs, doing the same with a library of digital-audio tracks, online photo collection or a Facebook profile is less straightforward – and not just because these things exists only as bits of electronic data.

Dealing with digital legacies
When it comes to handing data over to a beneficiary of a will, the principles are essentially the same as with their physical equivalents: it’s easy to make a mention of an MP3 music library or digital photo collection in a will, for example.

Well, in theory, at least. But in practice, there are a few problems – and some seem unsolvable.

The obvious difficulty in granting a beneficiary a stash of digital files is that unlike a photo album, for example, there is nothing physical to hand over – unless the deceased was prescient enough to copy the relevant data to a USB memory key before they passed away.

If the data is kept on a PC then that may make things a little easier, but only if it isn’t protected by an unknown password.

Passing on passwords
Passwords can be a problem. All online services require one for access, whether it’s a webmail service such as Gmail, photo-sharing website such as Flickr or music and app repository – Apple’s iTunes Store, for example.

Login details for important online services can be listed in a will for the attention of the executor, but amending a will to reflect new service subscriptions or when passwords have been changed can be costly and impractical.

Managing and passing on a single password is much easier than handling a few dozen, but we’re constantly reminded to use different login details for each online service we use.

Fortunately, there are ways to ensure that account credentials fall into the right hands at the right time – so-called ‘digital legacy’ services. Legacy Locker, for example, asks for contact details of two ‘verifiers’ (next of kin, perhaps) who must supply a death certificate when the time comes in order to deal with the account-holder’s digital estate.

 

Specific online assets can be linked with named beneficiaries too, but the will must also reflect this for it to be legally binding.

Entrustet uses a similar system, but also allows specific online accounts to be shut down automatically once the account-holder’s death has been confirmed. This is a useful way of ensuring a private online journal stays that way.

Of course, digital-legacy services are not themselves a solution for the distribution of passwords after death. First, supplying personal account credentials to such a service requires placing some trust in both the operator’s intentions and their own security systems.

Even then, the idea isn’t foolproof; few subscribers would want their digital-legacy locker to be opened up any time soon and there is no guarantee that a particular commercial service will still exist in five years’ time, let alone a decade or two.

As an alternative (or in addition), consider using a simple password-management program such as Keepass and include the password for it in your will.