The Israeli angle of Digital Death

None of the Israeli Internet suppliers publish their policy in case of death of a client online. You can't find it, neither in the Terms of Use section nor in their Privacy Policy. I contacted each company and asked: What is your policy in case of a death of a client? 

Israblog
The kindest, most thoughtful reply, was received from Ilana Tamir, Isra-Blog's manager. "I can tell you that, unfortunately, I came across that question quite often: what to do with the blog of a blogger who passed away? We don't have a strict policy because each case is different, but mainly we aim to respect the blogger's wishes: if the blogger closed their blog prior to their death (before taking their own life, for example), we will not reopen it, even if their family members will request it. On the other hand, If the family actually requests closing a blog, because of prying eyes or problematic content, we would most probably accept their wish. We sometimes give a relative the permissions to the blog, so they could post and inform about the blogger's passing".

"I have never asked yet to provide official documents. I usually just speak to a person on the phone to make sure this is not a prank or a social-hacking attempt. I noticed that sometimes the blog becomes a place of correspondence. For instance, I saw a brother who sends comments in his sister's blog every couple of months, stating how much he misses her". 

012 Smile

The most succinct reply was given by Meirav, a costumer assistant in Smile 012: "according to our legal department, no access to the mailbox shall be provided without a court-issued warrant".

Walla!
The most organized policy on the subject is exercised in Walla!, as was specified to me by Nir, a department manager in their technological support department: "There is indeed a proper protocol to giving a password for a deceased person's email account. This policy guides the applicant and requests them to supply the following information to Walla!:

• The deceased's name and email address
• The name of the applicant
• Stating the relation between account owner and applicant. 

In addition, we require the following documents:

• A copy of an official document stating the releation between owner and applicant
• A copy of the owner's death certificate
• A signed lawyer statement (according to Walla!'s specific format)
• If the account owner was underage, one needs to add to the aforementioned documents a written agreement of both parents and/or two legal guardians to provide the password, along with copies of the parents or guardians identification cards.

Tapuz

The vaguest answer was given by Shlomi, from the forum management team at Tapuz: "any person providing a concrete request in affairs such as this is welcome to contact the relevant people in Tapuz, and their request shall be looked into in a sensitive and thorough manner, as befits the circumstance".

When I repeated my question regarding Tapuz's policy in the matter of a user's passing, I received the following answer from the forums' support team: "As a rule, we do not provide a password when there is no access to the mail from which the user initially signed up, therefore it is impossible to provide access to control a user's profile or their content. A person with access to the signup mail account does not need our permission and can recreate the password automatically. In absence of legal reason and/or a court-issued warrant, change of uploaded content and control over the content will be done as a rule by the owners of the access to the user's account".

"Cafe TheMarker" 

The sentence that surprised me the most was found in the reply given by Lior Papirblat, the social media editor of the "Ha'aretz" group: "Although 'Cafe TheMarker' exists five years, I am unaware of any requests from relatives of deceased users".

"The rights of the uploaded content belong to the users. If the family is in posession of the username and password, they can log on to the profile unlimitedly" (the words were bold and underlined originally - V.) If they are not in posession of the username and password of the deceased user, our policy is to not give out personal information, including passwords, in order to protect our users. Unless there is a court-issued warning on the subject, to which we will comply, naturally".

"As a matter of principle, the inheritors must organize all affairs of inheritance and legacy by law, and as much as the courts will perceive that indeed there is justification in handing over the deceased's personal information, as was kept on the website, we will of course honor any such decision given by the court".

I find the fact that until now no requests were made to the Cafe on the subject quite astonishing. I asked Lior a few more questions:

If you were approached by relatives of a user who posted in the Cafe, closed their profile and commited suicide, would you agree to re-post their content?

Lior: "Again, if the family has a username and password to the user's profile, they can log on, take it offline, return it online or leave it as is as they please. We would most probably not know about the user's passing until the family would contact us".

If a deceased user's relatives would ask you to leave their posts untouched despite their passing, because they consider it a part of his legacy, would you agree to leave a profile untouched, despite knowing they are dead? Would you agree to post an announcement on the Cafe's behalf in the profile, at the family's request, noting the fact that they are no longer with us?

"If the deceaded did not delete the content before their death, and the family wishes to keep it - we have no problem. If they removed content and the family requests to restore it - this is a more complex issue. But if they regulate the matters of legacy and inheritence in court, we could provide them with the username and password, and they could restore the content. Provided, of course, that the user did not delete those completely. We have no technical way to publish a death annoucement in someone's profile. The most we could do would be publishing it as a comment to the deceased's last post".

If you were approached with the request to remove a user's content because they have passed, would you agree to close their profile and remove all their posted content, even if was not their request but rather their families, because they wouldn't wish this to be online?

"Only if this was agreed upon in court"

013 Netvision

A regulated policy on the subject was presented by service assistant Tanya-from-team-Adi ("we don't give out last names"): "When we are approached on the subject of a user's passing, one must provide a death certificate (which is the formal reference for us to give out information to a third party), an ID number, and the last four digits of the payment card (complete telephone customer identifying information).  Afterwards, we can provide passwords to all 013 Netvision services to which the user was subscribed, including email and cloud storage. You must remember this is all possible if the subscription has not been cancelled by the subscriber prior to their death: If the customer closed their mail account, there is no way of recovering or pulling their data. As soon as the account closed, it is closed, end of story".

"If the family wishes to keep the email account active, they must transfer the ownership on the account: the address stays unchaged, but it is transfered to the posession of the family members interested in maintaining it".

Since Netvision has different services to private and business clients, I asked if there is a difference in policies:

Tanya: "In case of a private subscriber, one must provide the aforementioned information. In case of a business subscriber, only the owner of the business, or someone on behalf of the business (whom is already known and indentified in the Netvision system), may be given the information. One must provide a death certificate, the company identification number or the ID number with which the company joined the service and the last four digits of the payment card".

This is interesting: seeing as many people send private correspondence from their office accounts as well, there may be an instance when private, personal correspondence may be exposed to the eyes of the business owner or workplace colleagues - which may cause unpleasantness even when there are no conflicts. In fraught situations, family members may find themselves "hostages" against business partners or bosses, who are the only ones with access to the mail, and they may delete mail that may be important to the family - personally or work-wise. 

Bezeq Benleumi

The most surprising policy was presented by Hadar Fleischer, head of public inquiries in Bezeq Benleumi: "We receive more requests to cancel the Internet access subscription than requests for email access. To cancel a subscription, we need what is complete customer identification information: the deceased's ID number and last four digits of payment card. That is also all you need to get the password for the deceased's email account. To receive reimbursement for the  Internet access subscription, we would require also a death certificate, and if we find that indeed there has been no Internet activity since the reported date of death, we will retroactively reimburse the payment from that date".

"If family members wish to cancel the Internet subscription but leave the email account active,  that is possible: for no charge in the first six months, and from the seventh month for a fee of 9.90 Shekel per month. You can report the death either immediately or retroactively".

On one hand, you can say that this shows lenience on Bezeq's side, in that it does not wish to burden the family with asking for a death certificate before beginning to look into the case. On  the other hand, this is the minimal information to provide the company with in order to receive the password: the ID number and last four digits of the payment card. No need for documents proving familial relations or proof of death. And this minimal information is too minimal, in my eyes. 

Nana 10

Seeing that the Nana10 mail is based on Hotmail, I wasn't sure who is the policy maker as to the issue of the death of users - Hotmail or Nana10? I asked both Nana10 and Microsoft Israel, and it turns out I'm not the only one who's unclear on the subject. According to the answer of Uri, the chat representative in Microsoft's customer service ("last name is immaterial"), Hotmail's global policy is applied to Hotmail Israel, and accordingly on the users of Nana10.

It is possible that a user's relatives, who believe he has an "Israeli" email account, would be surprised to learn that he owns an "international" email account, and that they need to approach - in English - the company overseas. Uri forwarded me to an FAQ page on the subject in the International Microsoft's forums (in English) and said that if I have further questions, I am welcome to post them there. I was happy to see that this information was also available in Hebrew, in the Microsoft Israel discussion groups.

On the one hand, the Hotmail policy (as I specify in the technical guide) is relatively user friendly and easy for the family of the deceased. On the other hand, I would expect that if I use an account with the suffix co.il, like Nana10 offers, I will have someone in Israel to guide me.

Update, 5.8.12: Nimrod, public inquiries manager in Microsoft's customer support, came back to me ("no last name needed"). Microsoft do not know what their policy is when a Nana10 customer passes - he is looking into that and will get back to me with an answer in a few days.

Update, 12.8.12: Ilana Tamir of Nana10, came back to me with an answer - nearly one month after my first contact with them on the subject (and after numerous mails). According to the email supervisor in Nana10, an inheritance order is needed in order to receive access to the email. In other words, one must turn to an Israeli court, rather than the international Hotmail. I wonder if Microsoft are aware of that.

Update, 21.8.12: Nimrod, public inquiries manager in Microsoft's customer support, called me back with a formal answer, as promised: Microsoft has nothing to do with it. Service, support etc. in case of death of a client are provided solely by nana10. 

Since it took Microsoft longer than two weeks to get back to me with their official answer, I can't help but assume they didn't have this answer at hand, not to say that they didn't have an answer at all. 
Since it took nana10 four weeks to get back to me with a formal answer, I can't help but assume that their the policy wasn't clear to them either. 

Internet Rimon
In May 2013 I asked Internet Rimon, used primarily by religious Jews, what is their policy (it's not published online either). The initial short, laconic answer was received from Nofit Harevi, in charge of Public Inquiries: "Each case is looked into by Internet Rimon's attorney". When I kept asking for more details, I was told "Each inquiry reaching our call center was looked into and each case was checked separately. The family can contact our call center by phone and explain the circumstances, our representative will personally take care of it and forward it to the relevant people".  

How can you approach each company? The post "After death: a technical guide" has been updated with their contact information

Thank you Ayelet Yagil for your generous help with translating this post

Alicia Keys: Digital Death as a way to Save Lives

Alicia Keys co-founded a campaign in December 2010 to raise funds for fighting HIV in Africa and India. The title: "Digital Death - Keep A Child Alive". The rules of the game: Alicia Keys and other artists "kill" their online presence, their fans donate funds for treating HIV positive children in India and Africa in order to "bring them back to life", and once the donations reach the goal of one million dollars, the celebrities are "resurrected" and go back online.

While the participants were digitally "dead", they didn't update their Facebook and Twitter accounts, and their fans were left without the flowing updates they're so used to having. The fans were also invited to take part, by "sacrificing themselves" and "killing" their online personas, in order to help raise further funds. 

Instructions about how to make the "ultimate digital sacrifice" can be found here, and the pictures of the artists who chose to "die" in this campaign - among them Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Lenny Kravitz, Serena Williams, Elijah Wood, Kimberly Cole and David LaChapelle - can be found here.  

The pictures which formed this campaign are indeed troubling and eye-catching: 

It worked: in 6 days more than $1,000,000 worth of donations were raised. 

Lady Gaga couldn't miss out on an opportunity to wear a costume, so she went shopping dressed as a corpse, with makeup to match, during her digital deathness period. You can read about it in the Daily Mail Online here. 

Further details about this campaign can be found in the press release. 

Although it clearly wasn't what the campaign was about, I hope it helped raise awareness to digital death in general: if we realize that others - and ourselves - have digital personas which are important and meaningful to us, so much so that we're willing to spend money to keep it "alive", perhaps we will also realize it's important to manage it. 
And if I take this line of thought one step further: perhaps such a campaign can be used in order  to raise awareness to the subject. 

Crowdfunding

On October 6th 2012 an international conference (or to be precise: an un-conference) will be held in London - the 5th Digital Death Day. This takes place twice a year, once in Europe and once in North America. 

I wish to take part in it, and since I can't afford to pay for my flight and entrance tickets, I'm asking for your help. 

If 36 4 people will each transfer 50 NIS (=12.5 USD, = 10 Euro), and 72 8 people will each transfer 25 NIS (=6.2 USD, = 5 Euro), it will reach the sum necessary for covering the minimal expenses: 3,600 NIS (3,200 NIS have already been transferred - thank you!). Oh, and two more people are needed for covering the fees charged by PayPal for these transactions.  August 28th update: The goal has been reached: 3,600 NIS were transferred - thank you! I am very grateful for your support and trust, and I'm moved by it.  

If you can afford to take part and support this blog and this trip, I'll be very grateful. The PayPal button is here on the left. When you type the sum it should be 25.00 or 50.00 (and not 25 or 50). You do not need a PayPal account to make this transaction, by the way: only a credit card. 

I will use the money collected by this crowdfunding solely for the purposes of financing this trip. I will block the possibility to transfer funds once the necessary sum for covering the travelling expenses will be raised.  
If this sum will not be raised, I will refund in full all the money which has been gathered by that point. August 28th update: As the goal has been reached, I am taking down the button. I thank you all very much. 

I wish to make it very clear that although the PayPal button says "Donate", this is not a donation in the sense that I am not formally a non-profit organization (although this blog is for non-profit purposes), and I can't supply any receipts, let alone any tax-deductible receipts. 

After death: a technical guide

When approaching the difficult task of accessing websites and online accounts, dealing with it is divided between two options: having the password or not having the password. 

• If you have a password - you can get in 
• If you don't have a password, but have access to an e-mail account, in most of the websites you could click on "I forgot my password" and a link will be sent by e-mail, to create a new password. Once you have created it, you can get into the website / account 
• If you have neither a password nor access to an e-mail account, the dealings get more complicated, because they involve approaching the online services providers. Some are already set for dealing with death of clients and present clear policies and guidelines in this regard, but some are still grappling with it or have done so until recently. Twitter, for instance, published their policy only in August 2010. 

Another element you'll need to take into consideration is TIME. In certain cases, only a narrow window of time is available through which you could take care of the deceased's digital legacy:

• On facebook, for instance, at any moment someone might turn his or her profile into a memorial profile (your consent isn't required and you'll find yourselves locked out of the account - even if you have a valid password). Therefore, the first thing I recommend you do is download a copy of the profile's content (for "how to" scroll down, under "Facebook"). 
• Some of the email services providers might terminate an account which hasn't been used over a certain period of time, depending on their Terms of Use. Therefore I recommend that if you have the means to do so, go into the email account, just to create some activity and prolong the window during which you can make up your mind. 
• Sometimes you'll have access to accounts only for a limited amount of time: if the deceased passed away while his / her smartphone / tablet / laptop / computer was still logged on, you would still have access through this device to his or her online accounts. But eventually you'll be prompted to re-enter the passwords, and when you can't provide one, you'll be locked out of these accounts. Therefore, I recommend you take advantage of this access while you have it, and set as many new passwords as you can, to ensure you have independent access to the accounts - at least to begin with. Maybe later on you'll decide to close the accounts, or not to go into them, but at least you'll have a choice. 

I know you already have so much to handle after the death of a loved one, and maybe his or her digital legacy doesn't strike you as urgent, but unfortunately, by the time you do get around to dealing with it, it'll be too late, and invaluable, precious data will be permanently lost - in a way which cannot be restored. 

Entrustet used to have a wonderful blog, and in it a "Digital Executor Toolbox" could be found. Unfortunately, when Entrusted was purchased by SecureSafe, the blog went offline, which is a pity. It used to have useful information about how to close online accounts and delete digital assets after the user has passed away. I hope it will go online again. In the meanwhile, I have compiled a list here for your convenience. A click on each link will take you to the relevant page of the online service provider.  


International companies (Israeli companies listed below) 

Twitter

"Please note: We are unable to provide login information for the account to anyone regardless of his or her relationship to the deceased."

Gmail

"If an individual has passed away and you need access to the contents of his or her email account, in rare cases we may be able to provide the Gmail account content to an authorized representative of the deceased user. .... Any decision to provide the contents of a deceased user’s email will be made only after a careful review, and the application to obtain email content is a lengthy process. Before you begin, please understand that Google may be unable to provide the Gmail account content...." 

July 2015 update: 
When you click on the same link, what you get now looks like this: 

Google now offers you to choose between: 

• Close the account of a deceased user
• Submit a request for funds from a deceased user's account
• Obtain data from a deceased user's account
• Notify Google that a user is deceased 
• Resolve a potential hijacking of a deceased user's account
• Make plans for what should happen to my own account 

YouTube

Between the time I wrote this post as a draft and print-screened this page and the time I published this post, YouTube took their policy offline. Right now there isn't an online policy regarding a deceased YouTube member's account. I've sent YouTube a query about this and will update this post once I have news. 

Hotmail

"The Microsoft Next of Kin process allows for the release of Hotmail contents, including all emails and their attachments, address book, and Messenger contact list, to the next of kin of a deceased or incapacitated account holder and/or closure of the Hotmail account, following a short authentication process. We cannot provide you with the password to the account or change the password on the account, and we cannot transfer ownership of the account to the next of kin. Account contents are released by way of a data DVD which is shipped to you."

Linkedin 

"To close the account of a deceased LinkedIn member you'll need to submit a Verification of Death form. Note: This form requires an email address registered to the deceased member's account. Without this important piece of information, we will not be able to address your request." 

Myspace

This used to be MySpace's policy, but they updated it in July 2012: 

"We will only remove or preserve the profile of a deceased user at the request of the next of kin or at the request of the executor of the estate. Myspace will not allow access or update the log-in information for a profile for any circumstance... However, if you have access to the email account tied to the Myspace profile, you can retrieve the password by clicking www.myspace.com/auth/resetpassword". 

Facebook

"In order to protect the privacy of the deceased user, we cannot provide login information for the account to anyone."

My advice is: if you have access to the Facebook account of your loved one who passed away, the first thing you should do is download a copy of it (General Account Settings > Download a copy). If someone were to notify Facebook that the account owner has passed away, Facebook will block all access to the profile and you will not be able to get in - even if you do have the password. Facebook's policy is controversial: anyone can notify that a person has passed away, not just members of his immediate family. Hence, the spouse / child / parent might suddenly find themselves with the profile turning into a deceased person's profile, without their request. Once a profile is "memorized", as they call it, only friends can see it and locate it in search results see update below, and some of the content disappears while some of it remains - and you have no control over it. Very little information is required in order to report someone as gone: Report a Deceased Person's Profile

The only right reserved to members of his / her immediate family is to ask for the profile to be deleted: How do I submit a special request for a deceased user's account on the site? and then "If you are an immediate family member and would like to request that we remove your loved one's account from the site, click here".  

In February 2014 Facebook changed their policy in two regards: 

1. Following John Berlin's appeal to see the 'Look Back' video of his deceased son, Jesse Berlin, Facebook now allows members of a deceased user to watch his or her 'Look Back' video. Please note: a request to see a Look Back video of a user who passed away equals a request to memoralize the account, even if this wasn't your intention, so please make sure you understand the consequences of your act before making this request. If you are certain you wish for his or her account to be momoralized, or if the account is already memoralized, you can make the request here. Thank you Damien McCallig for highlighting this point. 
2. Facebook took this opportunity to also change the privacy settings of memoralized accounts: from now on, the content will remain visible as the owner defined it while he/she was still alive. Meaning: if certain content was made visible publiclicly, it will remain so. If certain content was made visible to friends of friends, it will remain so - unlike what the policy was up until now: that once an account was memoralized, all the content was visible to friends only. 

A word about Facebook's policy of memorializing an account: Of course this is very personal, but I think and feel it is better to keep "running into" my dead brother's profile on Facebook as if he were still alive, than to have his profile declared as a profile of a dead person. I do not wish for certain content out of his profile to disappear, as it will disappear without any of us having a say about what stays and what disappears - it is determined by Facebook's policy only.

Ever since my brother was killed, he has received hundreds of friendship requests, and as far as I can tell, all are by people who realize he is dead. I am puzzled by this: Is it their initiative, or in response to Facebook suggesting him as a possible friend? Is it their way of showing their respect to him? Their way of expressing their sorrow over missing out the opportunity to be his friends while he was still alive? Do they expect their request of friendship to be accepted? Is there a bit of voyeurism in it - to see which content they will be granted access to as friends, that they couldn't see before? How would they feel if "he" will suddenly approve their request, since it will be clear it was not done by him but by a family member?

Since approving a friendship request grants access to certain content which only friends can see, I feel no one has the right or authority to approve friendship requests but the deceased. 

Israeli Companies 

None of the Israeli companies publish their policy regarding death of a client online. I gathered the following information from each one as a service to the readers of this blog. 

Walla!
Walla! will grant you the password to the mailbox as soon as you follow their clear policy in this regard. Email them at: support@walla.net.il and ask for a copy of their instructions in English (In a nutshell, you will need to provide both proof of death and proof of your relation to the deceased). You should contact them as soon as you can: an e-mail account that hasn't been used in 3 months might be closed by the company. 

012 Smile 
Unfortunately, there is no point in contacting this company. They will only grant access to the e-mail under court order. Contact your lawyer instead. 

Bezeq International 
You can notify Bezeq International someone has passed away either by phone: *3014 or by chat with a customer service representative. You will only need to supply the ID number and the last four digits of the method of payment of the deceased, and they will give you the e-mail password. You will need to provide a copy of a death certificate, oddly enough, not in order to gain access to the e-mail account, but in order to receive a refund for unused Internet services. 
If you wish to keep the e-mail active, you can do so: the first 6 months for free, and from the 7th months onward by paying 9.90 NIS per month. 

TheMarker Cafe
You can notify TheMarker Cafe by phone 03-5133697 or e-mail support@themarker.com, but they will only grant access to the account under court order. 

013 Netvision 
You can notify Netvision by phone: *3013 or by e-mail service@netvision.net.il. As soon as you present a copy of the death certificate, ID number and last four digits of method of payment, you will be granted full access to all the services the deceased was subscribed to - including e-mail and cloud backup. This is relevant however only if they had a private account. If they had a business account, only the owner of the company can contact Netvision, or the person registered at Netvision as the contact person for the company the deceased person worked for.   

Tapuz 
You will have to have a Hebrew speaking person next to you, as Tapuz can only be contacted by a Hebrew form in their website. They will only assist you in gaining access to the account if you have access to the e-mail address that the person who passed away registered with. If you don't, they will assist you only if there is a legal cause for it, or under court order. 

Isra-Blog
Isra-Blog is part of Nana10 and can be notified about a death of a blogger by e-mail: israblog@nana10.co.il. They don't have a consistent policy: in some cases, the blog will be taken offline. In other cases, a family member will be granted access to it - depending, among other factors, on the family wishes. 

Nana10 
You can contact Nana10 by e-mail support@nana10.co.il, but access to the mailbox will only be granted under court order. 


What is so frustrating about the long, complex dealings with the various Internet providers and their different policies - which includes heartache and helplessness - is that the people left behind after the death could have easily been spared all that - if only the deceased had left their usernames and passwords behind. They could have accessed their accounts without the provider ever knowing the user was dead. Several products (some of them for free) offer this exact service: keeping track of websites, user names and passwords, along with instructions of who may access what, are detailed in this post: Managing Your Digital Legacy. 

Before death: leaving messages behind

One of the services easily found today is preparing in advance messages which will be sent after your death. I wrote about the services Death Switch offer in my 3rd article for ynet. 

• "Death Switch"

"You create e-mail messages, attach files, and specify your recipients, and the messages are automatically emailed after your switch is triggered". 

October 2015 update: Death Switch has shut down. 

• A Facebook application by the name if i die "is the first and only Facebook application that enables you to create a video or a text message that will only be published after you die".
• "Parting Wishes", "Dead Man's Switch" (which is quite similar to "Death Switch" mentioned above), "My Wonderful Life" and "B Celebrated" all offer send private messages for loved ones after we're gone.
• "Dead Social" focuses on messages to be sent after death via the various social networks. 
• Social Farewell "enables you to create messages that we will email or post to your social network in the event of your death". 
• Final Fling offers to "record Wishes, leave last requests... and to leave messages, pass on pics or home movies"
   

Sites which have been shut down: 

• "If I die" - "Gives you a way to write notes that will only be delivered if you die". - Don't mix it up with ifidie.net which is still working (the site which got shut down was ifidie.org). 
• "Eternity Message" used to offer not only to send out messages immediately after death, but to send them also in predesignated dates in the future, such as your daughter's sweet 16 Birthday, or your spouse's next milestone birthday (40, 70, etc.). I wonder what happenned to letters stored in the system which were supposed to get sent in a few years from now. 
• "Great Good Bye" used to offer to send e-mail too, but with the possibility attaching MP3, photos and videos, and having the "Memorial stay online for 20 years". I wonder what happened to accounts that were supposed to be kept for several more years. 
• "Life Ensured" used to offer to send not only e-mail messages but also blog posts and tweets.
• And Death Switch has shut down as well. 

I've first seen some of these links at The Digital Beyond and credit and thanks go to Evan Carroll and John Romano for compiling it. 

After death: the difference between dealing with digital assets and other assets

My answer when asked the following question: "What's the difference between, for instance, opening a bedroom drawer of someone who passed away and discovering old love letters, to opening an e-mail account of someone who passed away and dealing with the e-mails in it?" 

• A person usually has only one bedroom, with clearly visible drawers in it, so the number of drawers needed to go through can be known in advance. The space in each drawer is limited, so the approximate time needed to go through it all could be estimated. Hidden compartments are usually found only in the movies. Even if one of these drawers is locked, the key could probably be located among his belongings, or the drawer could be broken into quite easily. If not, a locksmith could be called, who could open it without being exposed to the content in it. 
• A person could have several e-mail accounts, which will not be all clearly visible or known to you. Even if you do know of them, you will not necessarily have the passwords to access all of them. In order to break into them, a pro might be needed (say, a computer technician), which means a stranger will gain access to something very private and personal. Another possibility is that you'll find yourself at the mercy of the various e-mail providers and their policy in this matter. The space of each e-mail account could be vast - bordering on limitless - you could find yourselves faced with thousands of e-mails in each one of them. (More information about the various policies can be found in my 2nd article for ynet and in my posts: Technical guide, The Legal Aspect and The Israeli Angle.) 

• Love letters could be addressed to or from an anonymous person, whom you will not be able to identify nor contact. 
• In e-mails, the to / from fields are visible.

• If the bedroom drawers are at the home of the deceased person, chances are there won't be any legal debate regarding whom the content of the drawers belongs to: the deceased, and therefore, you, as their rightful successor. Worst case scenario, you might have to deal with other family members who might want some of the letters you came across inside these drawers. 
• When we're talking about the content inside e-mails, if it's a web-based e-mail service, you might find yourselves having to prove ownership of that e-mail account and having the right to access it, and the policy of the e-mail provider might not be in line with how you feel about it. In such a difficult, sensitive time, you might find yourself dealing with outsiders regarding an issue you see as very personal, an issue you feel should have been dealt with inside the family's inner circle only. (More information in my Legal Aspect and Technical Guide posts). 

• In the past, people (especially men) used to have a hidden stash of porn tapes / magazines in their closet or under their bed. If they had a spouse, their spouse probably knew about this private collection and therefore, could throw it away before other family members entered the home of the deceased. If he or she didn't have a spouse, a friend or a family member would have come across this horde and had to deal with a moment of awkwardness. 
• Today, there's a pretty good chance you won't come across any printed porn magazines or porn video tapes, but you will have to deal with finding porn on the computer. There are several online guides about how to both hide the computer porn and how to get rid of it, but if the deceased didn't get a chance to learn how to do the former, you might find yourselves doing the latter.

• Usually, a normative person has a single physical identity and a certain amount of physical assets. When you go over it after they pass away, you go through the contents of a room, an apartment or a house, sometimes also through a shed or a garage or a storeroom, but even if they used to hoard many objects, the sum of all his physical assets is limited. 
• A person could have multiple online personas and still be a normative person. If they were active online, they could have left behind many digital and online assets which you will find difficult to follow, let alone manage. Think of the trail of digital breadcrumbs we leave behind, on top of our e-mail accounts: Picasa, Flickr, YouTube, Google Plus, Foursquare, forums, blogs, Twitter, Linkedin, Myspace... The time you'll need just to go through it all, let alone manage it (save? delete? backup?), will probably take a lot longer than going through any crowded storage room.
• Most normative people, who aren't compulsive hoarders, sort their possessions and throw away some of their physical assets every once in a while. We cherish certain items of course, maintain a certain collection or keep an artifact for nostalgic reasons, but during spring cleaning (or Passover cleaning), or when moving to a new apartment, most people will sort their physical possessions and throw away those they no longer need. Upon entering their home, we'll find mostly stuff that was relevant to the later / latest time of their life. 
• Since virtual and digital possessions do not require a physical storing space, a lot of people never get around to sort or go through it, let alone delete some of it. We might find ourselves facing emails dating back to 2004, for example, which aren't relevant to any one any more, but were not deleted. (And thank you Shiri Yeshua for emphasizing this). 

Before death: commemorating yourselves and leaving instructions behind

Several websites already offer ways to creating your own commemoration and / or leaving instructions behind, to be filled after your death: 

• "B Celebrated" - "Create your autobiographical legacy website. Share your story with your words, images and audio. Automatically email your community when you pass away.  Leave a permanent site where your friends and family will celebrate your life."
• "Parting Wishes" - "Document your funeral wishes and organ donation preferences. Specify your health care wishes in case you are ever unable to communicate. Create a web page about your life which only goes online after you pass away."
• "After Steps" - "Estate planning, financial planning, funeral planning and legacy planning": from organ donations (or not) to how to best take care of your pets.
• The iPhone application "Legacy Organiser" - "Major events, private moments, memoirs, photos or songs that have been of great significance throughout your life can now be conveniently stored in one place. Should you wish, you can also share information with friends and family through Facebook. Create your Life Album by choosing photographs that reflect your life. Compile the Soundtrack of your Life by selecting songs that have captured the fun, the laughter, and the tears. Reflect on your life and record details of life affirming occasions, experiences and memories that have meant so much to you in Events. Plan ahead and put together your own Bucket List so you have a complete list of the goals and dreams you have yet to achieve. Legacy Organiser enables you to record important information relating to your death including your final intentions and wishes for all aspects of your farewell, your funeral arrangements, and your digital estate. Create and take control of your own legacy, of who you are and how you want to be remembered."
• As written in "My Wonderful Life", "You only get one chance to make a last impression" - "Make funeral plans. Write your obituary. Design your own headstone. Take care of your pets".

• The project "Remembered Voices, which I personally found extremely moving, allows you to record your voice and enter it to their voice library. We can leave behind what we sounded like, how we laughed, how we phrased our sentences. We can leave behind a bedtime story or a lullaby for our children, or leave behind our life story told in our own voice.
• Recollect offers something a bit different: "We archive everything you do online". This websites offers to archive pictures, tweets, and check-ins from various accounts across the internet, back it up and allow you to download it anytime, and allows you to search among tweets, Foursquare check-ins, Instagrams and Flickr photos, at the same time. While this could be good for you, it could be invaluable to your heirs. 
• GEN-ARC (which acquired Scangaroo) "provides key features and functionality that are critical to permanently preserve the priceless content in your family archive (your “GEN-ARC™”) and ensuring it remains viewable by forward generations". 
• Final Fling allows you to "record Wishes, start a bucketlist, leave last requests, pick funeral music, make a Will, appoint a trusted Keyholder"..."A Treasure Trove for digital legacies: tell your story, leave messages, pass on pics or home movies"... "A Scrapbook to share tributes, ideas, inspiration for fitting ends".

Some of these sites were shut down: 

• "1000 memories" - "Organize, share and discover the old photos and memories of your family and friends. We help bring the albums, scrapbooks, and photo-filled shoeboxes of our lives out of the closet and into an online, shareable space where they can be remembered and celebrated, together in one place." October 2012 update: the website was acquired by Ancestry.com and was later shut down.  
• Memolane shut down at February 2013. 

I have found many of these links at The Digital Beyond and credit and thanks go to Evan Carroll and John Romano for compiling it.