How do you want your social media pages, smartphone photos and computer files that have been dealt with after you die? Although the distribution of real estate and usually money is at the top of the estate list, don't forget to leave the instructions on your digital accounts and assets behind your survivors have more than just random bits and pixels of your online presence.
Here is a short guide to get your digital material in order, as well as advice for dealing with the accounts of those who left without leaving the instructions.
Make a digital guideline
A law that is known as the revised uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, established by most states, gives an elected representative (such as the executor of your estate) the authority to manage your electronic matters. Make a document for specific instructions and determine how you want your online accounts and all digital content that is treated when you die or become incapacitated for work and keep it with your other estate papers.
Giving access to the usernames and passwords of your account will help your representative enormously, but continue carefully. You need a safe place to state the login details for all your financial institutions, as well as for any e-commerce stores, insurance policies, online storage, e-mail, social media platforms, cable and wireless carriers, medical apps and media subscriptions.
One way to cod and store this sensitive information is by entering all this in an app-app manager app. Wirecutter, the Product Review Site of the New York Times, recommends 1Password ($ 3 per month for an individual plan, $ 5 per month for the shared family plan) or bitwenden (free, with in-app upgrades). Apple and Google have their own free apps, which store passwords and store on devices that perform their software.
If you want an analog option, print the list or write everything down in a notebook. Keep it updated, but make sure that the list is locked in a home -safe or another secure location, because it would be a gold mine for identity thieves.
Do not forget to notice the passwords and access codes that are needed to go into your password management app, telephone, computer or tablet; Most manufacturers cannot bypass a pin code without eradicating the device. Your survivors may need your contact list to tell people that you have passed, and they may have to keep your phone accessible to all necessary authentication codes with two factors.
Indicate a legacy contact
In addition to compiling your digital guideline and passwords, you must consider adding someone you trust as a “legacy contact” for your Apple, Google, Facebook and other accounts. A legacy contact is the person you choose to handle that account immediately after you are gone.
Apple added a legacy contact function to the software in 2021 and you can select a manager for your Apple account that is used with iPhones, iPads and Macs. To set it, go to your system settings on the device or Mac, select your name and then register in & security and choose Legacy Contact.
Google has an inactive account manager -tool for dealing with your Google account if you cannot use it. Go to the data and privacy settings of your Google account to set it up.
Facebook has a legacy contact institution to designate someone to manage your profile page, as well as a setting to delete your account when the company is informed of your death. For sites with which you cannot point out a person – and about which you have not left instructions – your executor usually has to contact the company and ask that the account is being deleted or repeated (converted to a static page).
Apple, Google and Microsoft are among the steps of account-deletion on their sites. Facebook, as well as other social sites, has a tool to download the photos and other content of an account before you delete it, just like Google with its Google Takeout function.
Manage without instructions
On the other side of the process, if you are The person who treats an estate for someone who did not intend not to intend their digital inheritance can take your administration experience more time. But even if you have not received instructions, you must try to close social media profiles and other accounts to prevent abuse on the internet.
Just as you would inform financial and insurance companies about the death of the person, you must inform the social media and other companies and ask that they take out the accounts of the deceased. This usually requires the provision of a death certificate, a death advertisement, Letter Testamentary (documents issued by the court given to the performer of an estate), your personal identification and other files. Digitalized copies are often accepted.
The help sections of Instagram, LinkedIn, Microsoft, PayPal, X, Yahoo and other sites have instructions for account access and closures, just like those of Apple and Google. In many cases you can request the content of the account such as photos and messages, although this may have to submit even more legal documentation to the company.
Managing the digital assets of a deceased person without instructions can make a difficult time even more difficult – which is all the more reason to leave your loved ones everything they need.
