Last blog post I talked about what to do with email accounts of a family member after the person passes away, or leaves the family due to a divorce. As I said it’s been on my mind lately with the anniversary of my father’s death at age 60 and my upcoming 40th birthday.
In addition to email issue, another problem after someone leaves your family is getting access to other online accounts . We leave digital imprints of ourselves long after we pass away and our survivors are in the unenviable position of what to do with our online identities. Heck, an entire SyFy series called Caprica works under the basic premise that we can live on in the digital world based solely on our digital footprint. It’s not that far off. What electronic aspects of you do you want to survive after you go offline permanently?
While most people know about having a will and health care directives, if you use a computer, do you have a “digital directive?”
For example, do you want your Facebook account put in “memorial” status so that well wishers can leave messages or would you rather it be closed in its entirety? Should you be untagged from pictures? Removed as a fan from certain pages? Do your family members even know you have a Facebook account?
Here are some Best Practices to consider what your digital directive should be.
1) List all your online accounts that family members might need access to. This includes logins and passwords. Typical things to include are
a) Email–this is probably most important because an email password is the gateway to most other passwords about your digital life.
b) Bank accounts–not just checking and credit cards, but also retirement and investment accounts
c) Travel accounts–loyalty points with hotels, airlines
d) Social media–LinkedIn, Flickr, Facebook, Youtube, etc.
e) General online services: anything that might be regularly billed to your credit card and your family members would want to cancel the account (Netflix is a great example)
2) State explicitly what you want done to these accounts and your computer.
Personally, I want my computer securely erased and immediately donated somewhere. I don’t like the digital debris of my life being seen by anyone but my spouse. In particular, I don’t want anyone to be able to see my emails but their intended recipients. We all say things we regret, but if it’s in my sent email, they are there forever. I want all backups of my computer destroyed. The only digital leftovers I want of myself are those things I had already shared with others.
3) How do you want your status to be announced?
Do you want a Tweet to go out? What do you want that Tweet to be? What do you want on your Facebook page? Realize that when an account is closed, the information out on the Internet in this account is often deleted. All those Flickr pics go away and those YouTube videos disappear. That great review you did on Yelp goes away if you close your Yelp account. I don’t have the answers to all of this for myself, but I think about it, especially around this time of year when the memorial of my father’s death comes up.
4) Keep all this information in a safe place that key family members can have access to.
My spouse generally knows my account passwords and a sealed document was hand delivered to my inlaws and kept in their safe deposit box with my digital directive along with all this information should both my spouse and I be in a disaster at the same time. I have a letter and email that goes out to my clients announcing my death as well instructions on how to access my client list.
Yes, I know this is kinda morbid, but facts are facts. I see these problems in my daily work life and experienced them personally when my father died. As more of life moves into the digital realm, traditional wills simply don’t cover these realities.
