How to Give Friends Emergency Access to Your Online Accounts
The year is drawing to a close, and now is the time to get your digital life in order. From organizing your online photos, to updating your accounts with new secure passwords, or finally clearing your browser bookmarks ; you have a lot to decide before the hits of 2019.
One thing you should consider – for services that allow you to do this – is to configure how other users can access your accounts in the event of an emergency. I know, I know – we at Lifehacker are committed to safety first, so it seems counterintuitive to let someone else have a backup of the keys to your digital kingdom.
However, life comes quickly. Perhaps in 2019 you will be exposed to a dangerous hack, due to which you will not be able to restore your account on your own. Something may happen that will take you away from your digital life for a long time, and someone may need some information stored inside (or at least a way to tell your friends the news about you). Perhaps you want to ask for permission from other friends or relatives for various reasons.
While you can give a friend your usernames and passwords – and some means to bypass two-factor authentication, which you hopefully have installed all over the place – some services have a built-in way to use someone else as an account recovery tool: sorts. Here’s a quick overview of some of the more popular services that offer this feature and how to set it up.
A sprawling social service has been offering a “ trusted contact ” feature for many years. Pick one (or more) friends or family members who will never be tempted to enter your digital life and can help you regain access to your account if you ever find yourself locked out. When you use this feature, they will receive a special code that they will need to tell you. Enter the code, go back to your account, change passwords and add additional authentication security and you’re good to go.
If you want to get a little darker, you can also set up a ” outdated contact ” that can write pinned messages, respond to friendship requests, update your profile and cover photos, and request your account to be deleted if you drop that death coil unexpectedly. …
Your options are a little more limited with Google. It is not possible to designate another person as an official “backup contact”, but you can always include a trusted friend’s phone number or email address as your account recovery information – in case you don’t have a backup that you can (or wanted would) use.
In a more disastrous situation, you might also consider making the friend an “inactive accountmanager ”. If you don’t sign in to your account for a specific period of time – 3 months, 6 months, 12 months, or 18 months – then you can set Google to automatically notify up to 10 people when your account is inactive. You can also share any of your Google data with them at this point, and even request that Google automatically delete your account three months after it officially goes inactive.
Apple
Better start brushing up on your skills in the courtroom ; I haven’t found a way to officially designate another person to “recover account” for your Apple ID. If a natural disaster strikes and you need access to a family member’s account, it’s unclear if Apple will let you do this (i.e. without legal paperwork). As stated in Apple’s Terms of Service:
“Unless otherwise required by law, you agree that your Account is non-transferable and that any rights to your Apple ID or Content in your Account will terminate upon your death. Upon receipt of a copy of the death certificate, your Account may be terminated and all Content in your Account removed. Contact iCloud Support at https://support.apple.com/icloud for more assistance. “
Your best bet is to manually grant a trusted contact access to your Apple devices. Add one of their Touch ID fingerprints or their face as an alternate look for your devices. Give them your Mac password, which will only be used in case of emergency, or even your Apple ID password if you feel particularly trustworthy (and they also have a way to pass any verification checks that Apple sends if they try to sign in.) with unidentified device).
I only include this so you don’t think I forgot about it. Otherwise, you won’t be able to give someone else authority over your account, other than giving them your username and password, and a way to go through your two-factor authentication. If any of your loved ones have a problem that prevents them from accessing Twitter, such as disability or death, you will need a power of attorney (or death certificate) to delete the account . You won’t be able to access it, as Twitter notes :
“Note. We cannot provide access to your account to anyone, regardless of their relationship to the deceased. Read more on Twitter for a deceased family member . “
¯ \ _ (ツ) _ / ¯
1Password / LastPass
We love strong password managers , and what better way to give someone emergency access to your digital life – all of that – than letting them into their Scrooge McDuck-like vault of usernames and passwords? (Again, for this to be useful, the person will also need a way to bypass all the two-factor authentication you’ve set up, but this is an important first step.)
For 1Password, others can help you recover your account if you’ve previously set them up as Family Organizers or Group Admin. In other words, if you’re a regular 1Password user who doesn’t pay for the more expensive family plan, this isn’t possible. However, you can give someone your emergency kit , which will give them everything they need to know to log in like you, including your all-important Secret Key for the service. This is a powerful package, so only share it with someone who promises to keep it safe.
If you are a LastPass user, you can give a trusted person the ability to view all of your saved logins and passwords using the service’s emergency access feature. They will need an active LastPass account to become your emergency contact and they will need to initiate an access request. You will then have the option to decline this request within your chosen time frame. If you don’t or cannot, then this contact will be able to access your entire password store.