How to Preserve Your Digital Heritage (and Why You Should)
Over the past few decades, more and more of our lives have gone online. With the advent of social media and cloud storage, things that were once analog or physical have become digital. It’s amazing in many ways: we can share and communicate effortlessly, creativity has become easier and more powerful, and we can imagine ourselves with a few clicks or finger taps. For example, the days of mailing out paper resumes on pretty paper are long gone—today we spend our time building amazing LinkedIn profiles and portfolio websites.
But as more and more of our lives are online, the question of what will become of all this when we leave the earthly realm begins to loom. This goes beyond asking your buddy to delete your porn stash when you die unexpectedly – your digital heritage includes just about every aspect of your life these days, from the photos you have on your phone to the ones you never bothered to name and systematize up to social networks. the number of media followers you have worked hard to build (and possibly monetized). Some of us put so much effort into our Facebook pages that they remain powerful memorials to our lives, filled with photos, correspondence, and important events, and you might want your children or grandchildren to have access to the records of your life in the same way. you have photo albums or ancestral journals. It also raises the question of what you pay for, from music files to digital movies to cryptocurrencies. Who controls them when you’re gone?
What’s really worrying about our digital heritage is how fickle it can turn out to be. When you are no longer there to maintain it, it can be edited or changed – or simply deleted. Twitter is currently inundated with official verified accounts of celebrities who have passed away but somehow continue to post fresh content, but you don’t have to be a celebrity to want someone to speak up about how your online presence is being used after how you left. Here’s what you need to think about when it comes to preserving and managing your digital heritage once you’ve taken it to the next level.
Take inventory
The first step to working with digital heritage is to understand its scope. It’s so easy to add devices, accounts, and services that you may not even know how much digital life you’ve accumulated over the years. So, first things first: make a list of all your digital assets (and use a note-taking app for additional meta). Things you probably want to think about include:
- websites or blogs you maintain
- your social media accounts
- emails you’ve archived over the years
- photos, music files, e-books and videos
- cloud storage files
- games on platforms like Steam
- medical records
- digital subscriptions
This is not an exhaustive list, but you get the idea. Think about what someone might need or want to access when you are no longer around to provide passwords, biometrics, or other access.
Providing access
The main thing to think about is that there are very few laws or traditions associated with your digital heritage because it is such a new concept. Other aspects of our lives, such as our finances or physical possessions, are governed by dense layers of laws that dictate what happens in a wide variety of scenarios. But your Facebook profile is a completely different matter.
First, choose someone as a “digital artist” and talk to them about what that means. This may be the same person you have appointed to carry out your will and other matters, or it may be someone specifically chosen for the task. Once you get their consent, it’s a good idea to set out their roles and responsibilities in writing – make sure they know how to initiate the process in the event of your death (they may just need to contact your lawyer, or maybe you have a document in a safe place with all your account information).
Companies are gradually simplifying this task. Facebook now allows you to set a legacy contact person who will maintain your “remembered account” after you die, and Google and Apple now allow you to set some options regarding who can take charge of your accounts after you die. you leave (or become incapacitated). ). More and more social media platforms and digital companies are going down this path, but not all, so you need to do some research. And there are companies like Lastly who, for a fee, will help you protect your digital heritage. When you can appoint a caretaker, that’s fine, but if you can’t, you need to ensure that someone has the ability to access and manage your accounts, which means giving them access to passwords or other security features. This could be as simple as keeping a spouse or trusted friend up to date with your passwords, or it could involve adding provisions to a legal will. Your approach largely depends on whether you’re handing over 5,000 uncategorized photos of your cats or something more valuable.
Here are some things to consider:
- Devices. While digital legacy concerns tend to focus on cloud storage and social media, don’t forget that your devices are a treasure trove of digital assets and are often very secure. If you designate someone as your digital artist, make sure they can access your phone, desktop, laptop, tablet, or any other device they might need.
- Passwords. Make sure you update your passwords and account information for your artist. If you run into trouble setting up your digital legacy but change your password a dozen times without updating your information, your chosen representative will have a lot more trouble following your death.
- Intention. Finally, as part of your discussion with your digital artist and the instructions you leave to them, be very clear about what you want to happen. If you don’t want your social media profiles to be permanent monuments to your life, make it clear that you want them closed. If you want something done with your photos, unpublished novels, or social media posts, state those wishes in plain language and don’t leave the performer guessing.
Don’t Forget the Financial Aspect
When it comes to digital finance, things get a little more complicated.
If you own a cryptocurrency, you have the private key needed to access it, and you most likely store that private key in a hot or cold wallet . To make sure your assigned performer has access, you need to make sure they have these keys. A cold wallet (which is a physical thing) stored in a safe place could be the solution, but be careful – anyone who gets their hands on your private key can practically do whatever they want with your cryptocurrency – as long as you are alive or dead – and there is little you can do about it.
If you have an account with places like Starbucks that automatically “reload” when your balance gets low, there’s a good chance they’ll be loaded with money. Your digital artist will also need your passwords for these accounts. There is usually no easy way to transfer this money – often you will need to contact the company’s customer support team to begin the process and provide any documentation required. Whether it’s worth it for $13 on a subway card is up to you to decide. Regular “gift cards” are considered more or less the same as cash, so there is usually no need to transfer them.
For banking apps like Venmo, Paypal, or Chime, your performer can use your login to transfer the remaining funds to your bank account and then close the account through their website. Once the money is returned to the checking or savings account, it will be processed in accordance with the normal legal procedures.
One thing is for sure: we will all die someday, which means we will leave behind a mountain of digital files and online accounts. Spending a little time planning what will happen with all this will save your loved ones (and your lawyers) a lot of trouble.