A couple of decades ago, life consisted of letters and physical appointments, be that visiting your bank branch, receiving bills by post or showing off your holiday snaps in bound albums. But now we face an almost entirely digital “cloud based” world, with online banking, emailed bills, and holiday snaps displayed on social media. What’s more, there can be significant value attached to our digital assets like monetised social media accounts or website domains, while others, like family photos, remain priceless. So, it’s important to understand what happens to your digital assets when you die.
To completely understand what happens to your digital assets you will need to look at each platform you use, but there are a couple of generic points to think about too.
Key Considerations When Making Plans For Your Digital Assets
- Review – Make a list of all your online accounts, be that social media, bank accounts or Amazon accounts.
- Discuss – Talk to your family in advance about your wishes for your digital assets to ensure items like photos aren’t lost for future generations.
- Will – Incorporate your wishes for dealing with each of your digital assets into your Will but make sure to not include usernames / passwords etc. Instead, put usernames / passwords etc., in a separate document that only the person you elect to deal with your accounts, has access to.
- Elections – For accounts that allow you to elect a “Legacy Contact” or “Inactive Account Manager” ensure you have elected such person.
Digital Assets – Platform Specific Examples
- Facebook allows you to remove or memorialise an account. A memorialised account says “Remembering” next to the profile name and is maintained with the existing privacy settings, but your original login details won’t work. You can also elect a “Legacy Contact” to manage your account. Note Instagram has similar policies given its owned by Facebook.
- YouTube accounts are usually linked to a Google Account, post death, Google won’t allow anyone else to use the account, but a family member can ask to remove the account. Google also provides for an “Inactive Account Manager” so you can elect someone to access your account when it becomes inactive.
- TikTok doesn’t have any formal policies for accounts post death and there isn’t an option to memorialise an account. However, you can contact TikTok directly and ask for the account to be removed if someone has died. To close the account, it is likely that you will need to provide your ID, your relationship to the deceased and the deceased’s death certificate.
Conclusions On What happens To Your Digital Assets When You Die?
There can be significant value associated with digital assets, like monetised social media accounts, while others, like family photos are priceless. It’s therefore important to decide in advance, what you want to happen to your digital assets after your death. We strongly suggest including your wishes in your Will and making sure everyone who needs to know your wishes, knows.
Next Steps
If you’d like help with your Will or to discuss an of your estate planning matters further, please book an appointment with one of our expert advisers, using the link at the top of this page.
