The digital inheritance

Our online possessions are valuable and now matter.

after death, someone has to deal with our digital footprint

Our digital footprint – what appears about us online in websites and social media services – is becoming more important as we’re judged by what people find out about us on the web.

As what we store on the web becomes more important, the need to plan for what happens to that data when we pass away becomes more important. “Generation Cloud”, a survey in the UK by hosting company Rackspace and the University of London looked at how Britons were dealing with these issues.

Information left online can cause problems as social media sites will send suggestions and reminders which can distress others if the suggested contact has passed away.

Equally, a web site or Facebook page could even serve as a memorial. The final blog post of Derek K. Miller is a particularly touching memorial.

To create a “digital tombstone”, for your loved ones to remove inappropriate posts or just to access your digital personal effects like email or photos stored on a cloud service, they will need your passwords.

In the Generation Cloud survey, 11% of the participants planned to leave their online account details and passwords in their wills and half considered some of their ‘treasured possessions’ are stored online.

Once again we’re finding our online data has real value that’s worth passing down. It’s another reason to guard your data safely and not give it away lightly.

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Author: Paul Wallbank

Paul Wallbank is a speaker and writer charting how technology is changing society and business. Paul has four regular technology advice radio programs on ABC, a weekly column on the smartcompany.com.au website and has published seven books.

2 thoughts on “The digital inheritance”

  1. I think Facebook has a procedure for freezing a page when someone dies. It’s one of the ‘nice’ things they have though of doing.

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