The preservation of digital assets after the death of the owner is an increasingly important issue that has been receiving much legislative attention as of late. However, the overwhelming majority of states do not have laws which dictates post-death access for family and estate administrators which means that the terms of use of the service provider will control. Google, for example, provides a feature that will allow certain people to be notified, and be granted access, if the owner does not log into their accounts for a period of time. Facebook allows a legacy mode that allows a certain person to access the account after death but with certain features disabled such as being able to access private messages. While Microsoft does not have any set feature an account owner can use to dictate access after death they do, nonetheless, have a system that will provide a DVD copy of everything in the account although heirs and executors cannot actually login. However, despite the above examples, not all websites will allow any post death access so always plan ahead for any online account that the estate might need to access.
See Sarah Jacobsson Purewal, How to prepare for your digital afterlife, CNET, March 2, 2016.
Special thanks to Brian Cohan (Attorney at Law, Law Offices of Brian J. Cohan, P.C.) for bringing this article to my attention.
