Civil Liberty Organizations Express Privacy Concerns Regarding Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act

As I have previously discussed, the Uniform Law Commission created the Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, which grants fiduciaries access to an individual’s digital assets. Four civil liberty organizations, Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and Consumer Action, wrote an open and joint letter expressing their concerns raised by the uniform act. Provided below is an excerpt from the letter:

The Uniform Law Commission (ULC) has proposed model legislation that grants a personal representative or other fiduciary access to digital content associated with an individual’s estate or assets,1 which could include a wide range of online content, bank accounts, photo albums, email accounts, text messages, voicemail, social media profiles, health and fitness data, and dating messages. As civil liberties organizations dedicated to protecting individuals’ privacy and autonomy, we write to express our concerns with the model bill and to urge state legislatures to reject legislation based on its provisions.