Available For Free Download: A Guide For Dealing With The Digital Aspects Following A Death

I wrote a guide about Death In The Digital Era: Initial information about how to deal with the digital, virtual and online aspects of current deaths. It's a booklet you can read, download, save and print at any time and at no cost. 

The guide is aimed both at the grieving family members themselves and at the professionals who support bereaved people: psychologists, social workers, military professionals, volunteers in non-profit associations etc..  

I would appreciate getting your feedback about it: both if it was of assistance to you and if you have encountered - as part of your personal dealings or someone else's - additional topics which this booklet has not yet addressed. I'll be happy to broaden it and make sure it gives a precise and complete a guide as possible following such feedbacks. Please feel free to write to me either via email: death.in.digital.era@gmail.com or via the Facebook page of the blog. 

The guide can be found here. 

You can scroll in it using the keyboard arrows or the bar on the side.

The guide was first published in Hebrew on my brother's birthday: August 17th. Today, March 2nd, the date in which he was killed, it is published in English. 

I wish to thank the following people, without whom the English version might not have come into being: 

• Amir Shemesh, who simply, one day, out of the blue, sent me an email saying: "Hi, I know you wish for your guide to be translated to English, enclosed please find the first draft" (we've never even met). 
• Mórna O Connor,  a colleague and a friend, who, upon hearing that I was disappointed by someone who took the language check and proof reading upon herself and then disappeared, immediately suggested that she'll take this task upon herself in her stead. 
• Shiri Yeshua, a graphic designer and a friend, who does all the graphic design for Digital Dust pro-bono since it first went online in 2012, and after designing the Hebrew version of the booklet, volunteered to also design the English version. 

I hope you know how much I appreciate your assistance and how awed and humbled I am by it. I simply could not have done it without you. Thank you for all the time, effort and good will you have put into this. 

I have deliberately focused in this guide on posthumous dealings. Managing our Digital Death issues while we are still alive is a different matter, which I hope to address in another booklet, but for now, this booklet intentionally deals only with after death digital issues. If you wish to know more about how to manage your digital legacy while you're still alive, please visit the following posts in this blog: 

• Managing your Digital Legacy / Assets / Estate
• Leaving Messages Behind
• Commemorating Yourselves and Leaving Instructions Behind

In April 2014 AVG published their own free eBook for Dealing with Digital Death. It's written in an angle which is a bit different from mine, so you might find it of interest to you as well.

Seriously, Yahoo?

Justin Ellsworth was a 20 years old United States Marine Corps Lance Corporal. 

He served in Iraq and sent his family emails and pictures using his Yahoo account: 

Print screens of emails Justin sent shortly before his death

A picture Justin sent his family from Iraq via email

In November 2004 Justin was killed in Iraq in an act of bravery which awarded him a Bronze Star Medal with Combat Distinguishing Device (V Device). Sadly, Justin did not become posthumously famous following his acts of bravery, but following the media coverage his family's law suit against Yahoo has received, asking for access to his email account (I wrote about this in the 2nd article I wrote for ynet in 2011). The words and pictures he sent and received during his deployment were very meaningful to them after his death. 

A court order in favor of his family was issued following a prolonged legal battle in court. The family did not get his password, but they did receive a copy of the content of his email account on a DVD. Following this court ruling, Yahoo changed their terms of use, making sure this will not happen again: 

Print screen: Yahoo's TOS

According to the current TOS: 

"No Right of Survivorship and Non-Transferability: You agree that your Yahoo account is non-transferable and any rights to your Yahoo ID or contents within your account terminate upon your death. Upon receipt of a copy of a death certificate, your account may be terminated and all contents therein permanently deleted".

Recently, a committee of experts at the ULC has drafted an act regarding fiduciary access to digital assets. As reported by Jim Lamm of 'Digital Passing': 

"The final version is the result of an active collaboration by Uniform Law Commissioners who were members of the Drafting Committee and over 130 observers who participated in the process, including representatives from The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, the American Bar Association, the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, the American Bankers Association, Internet service providers and several of their industry groups, and consumer rights and privacy groups".   

The act was approved in July 2014 at the ULC's Annual Meeting and Delaware was the first state to enact it, in August 2014. I (and other Digital Death colleagues of mine) hope that more states will follow suit soon.  

The essence of this new act is that: 

"...Legally appointed fiduciaries will have the same access to digital assets as they have always had to tangible assets, and the same duty to comply with the account-holder’s instructions".

And Yahoo? 
In September 2014 Yahoo wrote that they are against this new act. 
- Not only do they have such a strict, not-yielding, non-flexible policy regarding not granting posthumous access, they also disapprove of the new act. 
If their argument was that "we wish to maintain the user's privacy after his or her death regardless to his or her wishes", that would have been one thing. If their argument was that they don't like the current phrasing of the new law and they think it should be phrased differently, that would have been one other thing. But it is another thing when their arguments is that "it should be the user's choice": 

Print screen: Yahoo's Tumbler

Seriously, Yahoo? If the user's choice is so important to you, why don't you launch a service similar to Google's "Inactive Account Manager"? (It's an imperfect service, but it's an important step in the right direction).  
Why don't you force your users to check boxes regarding their wishes for posthumous access, just like you force them to check boxes regarding reading your terms of use? 

Graphics by Nimrod Benzoor

This is my proposal to websites, ISPs and platforms:
force their users to state their wishes in case
they will no longer be able to access their account

Why is your default choice - which is also the single, one and only choice - to have the account "terminated and all contents therein permanently deleted"? What if the user would have preferred for his or her loved ones to have access to his or her account after his or her death? If the deceased will pass the password on, they would be doing so in violation of your TOS (although you would probably never find out) and if the manager of his or her estate, a relative or a loved one were to contact you with a request for access, you wouldn't grant it. So how are you respecting the users choices? You're not giving them any!
I agree: some people would prefer for their account to get terminated upon their death. It is a legitimate wish and should be respected. But what about the people who would prefer otherwise? From the results of a survey I held in Israel last year (in collaboration with two other blogs), we've learned that there is no one answer which suits all (sorry, hope to get around to translating the results soon, you can read some of it in a paper I co wrote with Dr. Roey Tzezana and was published in Finland this summer about the gap between ISPs / platforms / websites policies and people's wishes). 

Yahoo, it's true that a user has a right to maintain his or her privacy, but what about his / her right to share? 

My Thoughts Regarding Google's Inactive Account Manager Service

In April 2013 Google launched a new service: Inactive Account Manager. I wrote about it here. 

At the time I only reviewed the service as-is. Now, as I had time to reflect on it, here are my thoughts: 

• After a person dies, is it possible to contact Google and find out if he or she were registered to this service, as notifications are not sent during setup? 
• If she or he were registered, is it possible to "speed things up"? - If a person chose to have his/her gmail account passed on to their spouse after several months, can their spouse get their copy of the account even if the allocated time has not yet fully passed?
  Obviously only upon proof of relationship plus death certificate plus access to the email account the deceased has specified for the download plus access to the phone number for a trusted contact the deceased provided, for example. But still - will Google allow it? Or must the spouse wait for the entire timeout period to pass?  
• If Google do offer this check up, what should the family member do? Send a death certificate along with a query whether the deceased was registered? Is Google allowed to reveal this information? If so, to whom? And under what circumstances? 
• If Google doesn't offer this check up option, or if the family is unaware of this service so they don't know they ought to look it up, does the family contact Google through "the usual channels" (detailed in the technical guide), only to find out after 3, 6, 9 or 12 months that the deceased had his/her own requests in this matter? Will Google alert them to the deceased’s registration for this service of their own volition?
• Once you receive the email when the inactive account manager goes into action, is there a way to find out if there are other trusted contacts and/or who they are, and if so, how? (Google allows you to name up to ten trusted contacts when you set this up). 
• Will Google prompt their users to use this service, like they prompt users from time to time to provide additional phone numbers / email addresses?
  Will they take it to the next level and insist their users use it? Like they insist users click on the "I read and agree to terms of use"? 

As some of you already know, as I express my opinion in this regard whenever I can, this is what I think Google should do: force their users to ponder their digital death and make a decision regarding their digital legacy, as most of them will not deal with it of their own volition, which is a pity. Once a person manages his or digital assets,: 1. His or her wishes will be carried out and 2. His or her loved ones will not have to go through the aches of wondering if they should or shouldn't access the deceased's digital realm, and if so, how. 

As far as I'm concerned, this solution isn't good enough because it doesn't let me choose whether I wish to bequeath my password or not: it decides for me that I can't. 

Before death: Managing your Digital Legacy / Assets / Estate

I'm a little (OK, a lot) behind on updates in several posts in the blog. This is one of them. Sorry about that, readers: I hope to catch up soon. 

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Quire a few companies now offer Internet-based solutions, due to the rising awareness of the importance of managing digital and online assets. The services offered by Legacy Locker, Data Inherit and Entrustet were reviewed in my 3rd ynet article in July 2011. 
In April 2012 Entrustet was purchased by SecureSafe, formerly known as Data Inherit, becoming one of the leading - and bigger - companies. 
Update: PasswordBox acquired Legacy Locker in November 2013. They now offer a digital life management solution for both before and after death. Update: Intel acquired PasswordBox in December 2014.   

I highly recommend choosing the company and service which suit you best and start using their services. By doing so, you will ease what your loved ones will go through after your death. This is also your way of guaranteeing you will control who gets access to what - and what gets deleted before anyone gains access to it. You will also spare them the part of wondering if they should access your digital and online assets or not and if yes, how. 

A very good infographic by the Australian company Life Insurance Finder, detailing what actions are recommend to be taken and in which order, can be found here: step by step expert guide to protect yourself online before you die. 

May 2013 update: Google are the first company to offer an in-house solution - I wrote a separate post about it. 

Legacy Locker

"A safe, secure repository for your vital digital property that lets you grant access to online assets for friends and loved ones in the event of loss, death, or disability."

Entrustet

"Probably without considering it, you have acquired and created numerous, significant digital assets, and traditional wills and trusts don't sufficiently address, manage or protect them. Entrustet provides the tools and resources to create a free, secure list of your digital assets, nominate heirs, specify a Digital Executor and decide which assets to transfer or delete after you pass away".
Entrustet was purchased by SecureSafe in April 2012. 

Data Inherit 

"With DataInherit, you can easily assign beneficiaries to your digital assets in the event that something should happen to you. This will preserve your digital assets for you, your family or your partners". Data Inherit became SecureSafe. 

SecureSafe

Companies who offer similar services are: 

• Last Pass
• Parting Wishes
• The iPhone application Legacy Organiser
• The Israeli start-up, E-Z-Safe - E-Z-Safe cooperates with virtual memorial website Personal Memorials since June 2012
• Life Ensured - Life Ensured was also purchased by SecureSafe, in July 2012
• WordPress plugin "Next of Kin" (Thank you Leah Aharoni for bringing it to my attention);
• Ziggur 
• The Digital Undertakers 

• Estate++
• After Steps
• Planned Departure 
• EverPlans - thank you Or Meidan for sending me this link. 
• Cirrus - Digital Legacy Services 
• DieSmart
• GetYourShitTogether - thank you Uri Gonda for sending me this link. 
• 1Password
• Capsoole
• Life Document Storage
• Final Fling
• GEN-ARC (which acquired Scangaroo)

As this market keeps changing (as seen with the merges and acquisitions above), some websites have been shut down and are no longer available: 

• PassMyWill - seems like they went out of business
• My Internet Data - seems like they went out of business 
• Executor's Resource - seems like they went out of business 
• Vital Lock - seems like they went out of business 
• Asset Lock - seems like they went out of business 
• Slightly Morbid - seems like they went out of business 
• My Web Will - seems like they went out of business 

I do not presume to keep a comprehensive list of all companies offering these services. The Digital Beyond do a great job of doing just that (among other things).