Managing Your Digital Life After Your Death

A majority of American adults don’t have a simple will. Perhaps you think it’s not necessary, too complicated, too time consuming, or too expensive. Or, you mistakenly believe that your spouse and/or children will automatically receive any assets you have.

Whatever the reason, now is the time to take action to ensure your family is financially taken care of in the event you pass away. The benefits of estate planning are plenty. You can identify your wishes and leave your assets as you wish. You can take advantage of tax savings or save money on court fees following your death.

Once you are ready to write a will, make sure your will covers digital assets. Digital assets include your online accounts, mobile apps for banking, email, social media, video and photo sharing, gaming, personal websites, blogs and more. With the advent of digital era, so many of us conduct our financial transactions and personal business on the web. Digital estate planning helps us manage our digital assets after we die.

Necessary Protocols to Access Deceased’s Digital Assets 

Providing executors access to financial accounts and other digital assets with a power of attorney is standard estate planning. Estate planning attorneys incorporate this standard to their practice. Various online tools for estate planning address how digital assets shall be accessed and to whom they shall be passed. Still, the concept of digital estate planning is relatively new and unknown. When a will is silent on digital assets, the surviving family is left with a burdensome and frustrating procedure when they wish to access the decedent’s digital life. 

After her husband passed away, Peggy Bush, a 72-year-old resident of Victoria, B.C., wanted to play card games on their iPad, but could not because she did not have a password for their Apple ID account. Peggy knew the iPad’s login password, but did not know the Apple ID password had been set up by her husband. To access all of their downloaded apps, she had to insert Apple ID password.

According to the Washington Post, her husband had a will by which he left her most of his real property as well as personal property. However, his will did not mention digital assets such as online passwords. When she contacted Apple, she could not gain access to apps on the couple’s iPad. After contacting Apple multiple times, providing them with a notarized death certificate, a copy of the will, and the iPad’s serial number, Peggy thought she was finally able to access to their account. Instead, Apple told Peggy to get a court order if she wanted the access.

The Current Law

Although the strict protocol for allowing access to the decedent’s families aggravates the emotional distress of the loved ones who are dealing with their loss, such formalities may be inevitable to safeguard the privacy of the decedent’s while preventing the estate from potential harm. Unauthorized access to online accounts may be subject to attacks such as hacking, fraud, and data breach.

Then how can an executor access certain online records to close a bank account or email account without violating federal law, the privacy of the deceased, and the privacy of everyone who communicated with that person? The answer is not simple.

First, federal law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), protects the privacy of our online communication content. Without express consent from the sender or recipient, or a court order or warrant, contents of online communications cannot be released after death or incapacitation. However, ECPA, which was enacted nearly 30 years ago, has limitations to address the protection of privacy issues arising from emerging technology let alone the issue of various digital assets of the decedent.

Second, your state may or may not have the relevant privacy law governing digital assets. Some states have passed or are considering digital assets legislation. However, even if the statute addresses digital assets, tech companies such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, and Linkedin set forth terms of service that differ significantly from others.

Access as Default or Privacy as Default?

States are taking up legislation to determine the default for how digital assets are handled. The Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (UFADAA) model law is one proposal.  UFADAA relies on the principles of fiduciary duty to ensure that no harm results from granting access to accounts. UFADAA allows personal representatives, executors and fiduciaries to obtain control of and access the online accounts of decedents unless the access is prohibited by the Stored Communications Act (SCA) . While nearly half of U.S. states have introduced legislation in 2015 to enact the UFADAA, most of those efforts have stalled due to opposition. Only two states – Louisiana and Delaware – enacted legislation in 2014, and New Mexico legislature, where the bill passed in the State Senate in February 2015, has substantial progress made toward enactment.

Opponents who criticize UFADAA as a disregard of the interests of the deceased, created an alternative act, “Privacy Expectations Afterlife and Choices Act (PEAC).” Mainly, the opposition comes from privacy groups, email service providers and social media companies. PEAC provides limited access to subscriber records and log files, but not to the contents of those records and files unless the deceased user had consented to release of such contents. In short, PEAC sets privacy as default.

No matter which legislation your state enacts, it is best you plan ahead and make sure you include digital assets in your estate planning. Without clear guidance, however, lawmakers should consider encouraging companies to create tools for users to express what they would like to do with their online accounts.