Ever wonder what happens your digital life when you die?
This is one of the few things that people do not take into consideration. I
purely understand the pain and grief that the family and relatives go though.
It would be hurting after one is laid to rest and once in a while notifications
pops up to that reminds you of the deceased.
Mostly by now everyone or 80% of people by now have a social
media presence. We all use this to interact meet lost family members, school
mates and random people who end up being friends. With this groups are created
and the echo system gets bigger and bigger.
When a dear one passes away their online presence is still
up and running and some people may even be commenting on their profiles, send
friend requests, DMs and even tag them in photos. The worst being birthday notifications.
The pain can be unbearable.
As some huge pieces of land and property go undeclared same applies
to the digital world lots of accounts including bank details, emails, bitcoins, passwords
that cannot be accessed due to security measures protecting the system.
How to handle
Some of these social media sites have polices in place to
kill your accounts after your physical death:
Twitter: Twitter
will deactivate an account on request of an Executor or verified family member
upon receiving a copy of a death certificate and certain other documents, as
advised by Twitter support.
Facebook: two options are
available first, it enables the
profiles to be turned into a memorial. The profile remains as is, but the
memorialized page is not shown as an active Facebook user. A friend or family
member must fill out a ‘Memorialization Request’, and provide proof of death.
Secondly account to be removed. This is done on request of
an immediate family member, who must fill in a specific request form. Facebook
has recently introduced the option of nominating someone as a ‘legacy contact’.
That person has access to your profile when you die. You will find this option
in your security settings.
Instagram:
will remove the account on receipt of a death certificate and a completed form.
The beauty of these is that the designated person will not
have any access to your private messages so you can literally take your secrets
to the grave.
In conclusion
Just as we do write wills it would be wise to also include some
of your digital info and maybe designate someone to handle it when you leave. Some of the sites have provision to handle
such scenarios.