When a spouse, sibling, or other loved one passes away, there are a variety of ministerial duties that must subsequently be managed. An increasingly prevalent concern in today’s modern, technologically-centered society requires dealing with the decedent’s online accounts. Depending on the jurisdiction where the decedent is domiciled, this may be more easily said than done. The Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, Revised (RUFADAA), proposed in 2015 and now enacted in more than two-thirds of the states, attempts to bring some uniformity to the process an individual will face when shutting down or accessing the online accounts of the deceased. Currently, there is a four-tier hierarchy that governs how online accounts are handled after death: 1) If the website has a specific process to handle the death of its users separate from its general terms of service, this language controls, 2) if the company does not provide this option, the decedent’s will may dictate how the digital assets should be handled, 3) if the decedent did not have a will, then the website’s terms-of-service agreement (TOSA) controls, and 4) if the TOSA has no language concerning how digital assets are handled after death, then RUFADAA may step in to allow access to these assets. As a practical matter, it is generally best to offer some guidance in a will to make this overall process more concrete and less stressful for loved ones after your passing.
See Naomi Cahn, The Digital Afterlife Is a Mess, Slate, November 29, 2017.
