How to Organize Your Digital Legacy

I'm about to introduce a subject that most of us prefer to avoid:our digital heritage. In other words, what happens to all of our digital content after we die? (And if your answer is "it won't happen," you haven't been paying much attention lately, have you?)

ContentsApple iCloud's Digital LegacyGoogle Inactive Account ManagerFacebook Memorial SettingsTwitterInstagram and floating in the cloud:backups, photos, tweets, Facebook messages, texts, etc. If you're not around to be careful anymore, these can hang around for a really long time - and some of them can be important to your survivors. (For example, who else has your bank account and credit card passwords?)

So let's take a deep breath and discuss how to make things easier for your friends and loved ones if something were to happen to you.

To begin with, if you are old enough (or wise enough) to have prepared a will, then your executor (the person who is responsible for ensuring that the terms of the will are carried out) will have also the legal ability to access your digital assets:online accounts, websites, etc. This is specified by the Revised Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, which has been passed by the majority of states in the United States. (As of this writing, it has yet to be adopted by California, Oklahoma, or Louisiana; it has been introduced by not yet adopted in Massachusetts.)

Since it's no use for your relatives or friends to have the right to take care of your data if they don't have your passwords, you may want to consider entrusting at least one person with the passwords to your computer and/or your password manager – or consider putting this information in a secure place and letting at least one person know where that place is.

However, the Act does not apply to social media sites, which could be problematic. You can include in your will who you want to entrust all your social media accounts to, which may make things a bit easier for them, but will still involve a lot of back and forth as they prove their right to manage those accounts.

There are a few companies that have added functionality to allow you to plan ahead who is allowed to manage your cloud and/or social media accounts if you are unable to do it. Here's how some of the major online services are handling (or not handling) the situation.

Apple iCloud digital heritage

Until recently, accessing a deceased family member's iCloud account could be extremely difficult, especially if you didn't have that person's account. recovery key. However, Apple recently added a Digital Legacy program to its iCloud accounts, which allows you to nominate up to five Legacy contacts who will have access to your account. The program is available from iOS 15.2.

To configure your legacy contacts:

• Go to Settings and tap your name at the top of the page.
• Select Password &Security> Legacy Contact.
• This is where you can add the names of people who will be able to access and download your data after your death; it will also list anyone who has registered you as a legacy contact. Tap Add Legacy Contact to add a name.

• The next page explains that you need to choose someone you trust and that person will need to have your access key and a copy of your death certificate. Tap the Add Legacy Contact button.
• A list of your contacts will be presented to you. Choose one.
• Again, a page will explain what information the contact will have access to. Tap Continue.

• You can now choose how to share your access key (which is a very long string of numbers and letters). If you send a message to your chosen old contact with the passkey and if they accept it, and if they have iOS 15.2, the key will be stored in their Apple Settings. Otherwise, you can print a copy for them on paper or in PDF format.

Google-inactive-account-manager

Google's Inactive Account Manager is one of the most comprehensive tools for taking care of your digital legacy, even if you're temporarily too sick to handle things.

• Start by going to the Inactive Account Manager and clicking Start. You will go through three configurations:when the inactive account manager will intervene, who to notify and if everything should be deleted.

• First, you decide whether the manager should activate if your account is inactive for three, six, 12 or 18 months. You are also asked to verify a phone number and/or one or more email accounts where you can be contacted. If you have not yet entered the account, then Google will use the phone number or email addresses to contact you one month before the end of the set time to ensure that you are really no longer there (and that you didn't just forget you had that account).

• The next page allows you to list up to ten people who should be notified by Google that your account has not been used. For each person, you can specify exactly which apps they should have access to, ranging from your calendar and contacts to your Google account and purchases. You can also just give them access to all your apps.

• If you want, you can add their phone number so Google can use it to verify their identity (and, oddly enough, you can include a personal message to send to them).
• You can also enable a Gmail message for anyone who sends you an email after the manager takes action, telling them that the account is no longer active. You can send the message to everyone who emails you or only to people in your contact list.

• Finally, you can have your entire account deleted three months after it has been declared inactive. This will also, according to Google, include any publicly shared data such as YouTube videos. (If you named someone who will have access to your account, this will give them three months before the account is taken down to save anything they want.)

• Finally, you will have the opportunity to review your plan and confirm that this is what you want.

Facebook Commemoration Settings

Facebook calls its digital legacy feature Commemoration Settings. It's similar to Google and Apple:it gives a chosen person access to your account after you die. The only difference is that because Facebook is often used to memorialize deceased people, there are additional things to be aware of.

• To get started, on the Facebook site, click the down arrow in the top right corner, and go to Settings &Privacy> Settings. Make sure you are in the General section (the first category in the left column) and select Commemoration Settings.

• The page will open explaining that you can choose a legacy contact who can manage tribute posts on your site, delete your site, accept new friends, and update your profile. The person you choose will be contacted by Facebook, so it's probably a good idea to talk to them beforehand.
• You can also choose to permanently delete your account via a link at the bottom of this page. If you don't choose this, as soon as Facebook discovers that you are no longer alive, it will "remember" your account. This means that the word "Remember" will be placed on your page, your content will remain, and your friends can leave messages on the timeline.

Twitter

Twitter does not provide a way to posthumously transfer your account to a family member or friend. Someone who wants to close a deceased Twitter user's account will have to fill out a form and then send in a stack of documents, including their own ID and a death certificate. They will not be allowed to access the account.

Instagram

Like Twitter, Instagram offers no way to plan in advance who will have access to your account or what they will do with it. Instead, the site will memorialize the account once it receives evidence, such as a newspaper clipping or death certificate. Family members can also request the closure of an account if they have the right proof.

As of this writing, there are no other social media sites that I know of that have specific functionality for what happens when a user is no longer the. Instead, executors, family members, or others with legal status will need to provide the necessary documentation to allow an account to be deleted.