Archive · 26 May 2025
Planning Your Digital Legacy: What Happens to Your Online Life?
Imagine you have a lot of stuff online, like photos, social media, and money accounts.
After you die, what happens to it all?
That's your digital legacy.
You can plan what happens by making a list of your accounts, saying what you want done with them, and choosing someone to take care of it.
Some things are worth money, like online businesses, while others are just special memories, like your photos.
Without a plan, it can be hard for your family to get to your stuff because of rules from the websites.
So, it's important to plan ahead, just like you would for your regular belongings.
Digital legacies encompass social media, financial accounts, and personal content after death.
Digital assets include items with economic value like domain names and online businesses.
Digital presence involves personal content like photos, videos, and social media profiles.
Planning involves creating inventories, outlining preferences, and appointing a digital executor.
Current platform policies present challenges due to access restrictions and lack of standards.
- Who
- Individuals with digital footprints and those they leave behind.
- What
- Planning for the management of one's digital assets and digital presence after death.
- When
- Ongoing, as digital legacies become increasingly complex.
- Where
- N/A
- Why
- To ensure digital content is handled according to the owner's wishes after death and address ownership and access issues.
Individual Ownership
Corporate Control
Ownership vs. Corporate Control
Individual Ownership
Users should have clear control over their digital data.
Corporate Control
Data privacy and corporate control are prioritized, limiting user access after death.
- Digital Assets
- Domain names, financial accounts, social media platforms, online businesses, virtual currencies.
- Digital Presence
- Photos, videos, social media profiles, email threads, and data from apps.
- Key Actions
- Create inventory, write preferences, use password managers, appoint digital executor.
- Platform Features
- Legacy Contact (Facebook), Inactive Account Manager (Google), Digital Legacy settings (Apple).
- Challenges
- Platform policies restrict access, lack of consistent standards, and emerging posthumous data uses.