A will, often called a "Last Will and Testament", is a legal document that allows a person to give instructions on what to do with their possessions once they die. It is also used so that people can declare a legal guardian for their children in the event of their death. In the digital age, people have been wondering what happens to their digital presence once they die. Digital wills are wills that determine the fate of a person’s digital presence once they die. These archives encompass any online account that a person may have such as social media, shopping sites, and gaming sites. Many websites now have a set of guidelines and procedures that can be followed to remove a deceased person’s account from their servers. These procedures may vary from site to site. However, a digital will is a way to determine the fate of your online presence in one location instead of having to make arrangements with each site individually.
Contents
Guidelines
- Appoint someone as online executor
- State in a formal document how profiles and accounts are handled
- Understand privacy policies
- Provide online executor list of websites and logins
- State in the will that the online executor must have a copy of the death certificate (DesMarais, 2014).
Obstacles and Problems
Although digital wills are necessary and helpful, some problems and obstacles may be encountered. As identified in the Buffalo Law Review; obstacles include 1) passwords, which online accounts cannot be accessed without, so if a loved one passes away, but does not pass along their account information, there is little hope of getting access to the accounts. 2) Encryption, which is changing information to hide something, 3) Federal and state criminal laws that penalize what is thought of as unauthorized access to computers and data, and 4) Federal and state privacy laws.
Terms and conditions of service must always be taken into account, which can cause problems if there are fine details, or clauses that refer to what to do in the event of the death of the account user. In some cases, the web service may have the ability to terminate the account and delete all data, and if other people besides the user gains access, there may be criminal charges placed against them, even if the one who died has passed on the password to them (Watkins, 2014, p. 194).
An article by Magder in the newspaper The Gazette provides a reminder that identity theft can potentially continue to be a problem even after death if their information is released to the wrong people. This is why online networks and digital executors require proof of a death certificate from a family member of the deceased person in order to acquire access to accounts. There are instances when access may still be denied, because of the prevalence of false death certificates.
Controversy
In Delaware this summer, the “Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets and Digital Accounts Act” was signed in. It states that a beneficiary that has control over digital accounts and/or digital assets will have the same rights as the initial account. However, this goes against Yahoo’s terms of service agreement which states that “neither their account nor the contents of their private communications are transferrable at the time of death” (Miners, 2014). They are only permitted to delete their account. Since many websites have their own method to destroy such data, this new law may cause other companies to express their complaints about it as well. Digital wills, though convenient, may also go against the terms of service agreements that many websites have if it transfers accounts from deceased individuals to living individuals.