Facebook: Ok to Name Account Manager For When a User Dies

February 12, 2015

As I’ve previously written, digital property presents unique challenges in estate planning.  What happens with your digital life when you die or if you are in a coma?

Facebook announced a new feature today that will permit users to provide a contact who can manage the user’s page after the user’s death.  Or users can instruct Facebook to permanently delete the account after the user’s death.

A legacy contact can’t access private messages or delete embarrassing photos.  But this contact can become a caregiver for the user’s digital tombstone and write posts, change the profile photo, and respond to friend requests.

If no legacy contact is registered, the page will be frozen when Facebook is notified of the user’s death.

To help your loved ones care for your digital property, I’ve have prepared a digital property inventory that you can download at no cost.

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Are You Backing Up Your Digital Life?

January 8, 2015

The holidays were filled with lots of wonderful opportunities to take pictures. Then those photos were downloaded to computers with the thought they would be held for safekeeping. But are they really secure? Many people were the happy recipients of new laptops or desktop computers that they are now happily using. Was a backup system… Read more »

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Who Cares for Your Digital Life and Afterlife?

August 21, 2014

What happens with your digital life when you die or if you are in a coma? The Washington Post interviewed me in a piece that highlighted Delaware’s new law that grants access to digital property owned by someone who is incapacitated or has died. As I told the reporter, in my practice I regularly see… Read more »

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Digital Property Inventory

October 29, 2013

Have you made an inventory of your digital property?  Or will your loved ones be left to search for your things?  How will they gain access? These are important questions as I discussed with a reporter for the Fairfax Times and the Gazette.

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Digital Property & How to Get Rid of It

September 17, 2013

I’ve written lately about the importance of planning for your digital property in case of your incapacity or death. I’ve also encouraged you to make an inventory of digital property so the person caring for you or managing your estate knows what you have, where it is, and how to access it. Now my digital… Read more »

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Do you know your Digital Property?

August 29, 2013

Many of us have digital property.  Family and vacation photos stored in the cloud for safekeeping and ease of sharing.  Music, books, and movies.  Email with friends and family as well as business matters.  Financial assets and records. We like our digital property – it is easy to use and we can access it from… Read more »

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Digital Property

July 18, 2013

If you are reading this, you are likely the owner of digital property. Digital property is very broad – e-mail, texts, social media posts, online accounts, videos, passwords and IDs to access sites, your data on shopping, financial and other sites, electronic documents, online backups, photo collections, and more. In this article, I and my… Read more »

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What happens to my Google Accounts when I die or if I can’t access them?

April 12, 2013

Ask and it will be given to you, says the Bible. Users must have asked enough as Google has provided an answer. Now you can decide how your Google Accounts are to be handled if you’ve left them inactive for any reason.  Maybe you no longer use Picasa to store your photos.  Or perhaps you’ve… Read more »

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