Staying Tangible [Even After Death]

Have you ever wondered what would become of your online assets if something were to happen to you, heaven forbid? Me either. However, I think it’s a valid consideration due to the shift in our generation’s obsession with the digital world and its job as a record keeper of our everyday lives. No longer are diaries, photo albums, and letters that track our interactions with friends and family being stored for keepsakes to show our children someday. All these pastimes are being replaced by blogs, photo sharing sites and e-mails and are stored on Internet databases with questionable lifelines. Because our intangible Internet memoirs can’t exactly be buried 6 feet under with us, it’s important to know what will become of our personal information after we pass.

After the tragic Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, social networking site Facebook was confronted with the issue of what to do with individuals’ accounts after they’ve passed away. Students and family members would turn to the victim’s Facebook accounts to remember and honor them, leaving messages on their pages and clicking through photo albums. In lieu of the Virginia Tech shooting, Facebook developed a “memorial state” for deceased account holders, where only established friends of the user could view the page and post comments. Alongside this policy came the issue of family members who may not have been a part of the online community but wish to access the account. Facebook has stated that a deceased user’s passwords will not be given to family members, maintaining the privacy of information stored on the site. However, they will take down the profile if requested by a family member.

E-mail providers have developed varied policies concerning the distribution of information to family members of the deceased. While e-mail could be an effective way of contacting friends of a late loved one, the issue of privacy plays a big role in the dissemination of people’s passwords without consent. Hotmail will distribute a CD with a person’s e-mails to family members as long as they present a death certificate and proof of power of attorney but will not give out passwords. Similarly, Gmail will release the same information with a copy of an e-mail the deceased sent to the person requesting the information, a death certificate, and proof of power of attorney. Yahoo! Mail keeps their users’ information private, but this documentation has been released to family members in the past through court orders. This sounds like a hassle for someone to have to go through after they've just experienced a death in the family.

While people usually don’t consider writing their will until late in their lives, it might not be a bad idea for younger generations to consider documenting the distribution of their online assets in case of a tragedy. This could be an uncomfortable process for those of us who have yet to face the reality of dying, but companies like Legacy Locker, Asset Lock and Deathswitch are encouraging people to expect the unexpected. Passwords and other personal information can be stored on Asset Lock and Deathswitch, ensuring their confidentiality. For a fee of $30 a year, Legacy Locker will manage the details of an individual’s online assets.

If you’re not uncomfortable enough yet, listen to how these companies determine whether or not subscribers are still alive. Legacy Locker’s users designate “verifiers” who will be called upon to confirm a person’s death before information would be released to the allocated recipient. Deathswitch will send out e-mails regularly to its subscribers asking them to verify that they’re still alive. If you do not respond to a certain number of messages, they will assume you are deceased and release your information to your designated receiver. Is it just me or does it sound like these companies are counting down the seconds until users bite the dust?

While I know people consider the information they post on the Internet to be near and dear to their heart, there are more manageable ways to back up this information without relying solely on the web. Burning photographs to CDs or printing pictures and storing them in photo albums are good ways to ensure these memories are kept safe, and tangible. Blog entries and personal emails can be printed and stored in a diary or journal. Just because all our personal information is now available to the public via the Internet, it doesn’t mean that we should rely on the web to publish our biography after we pass. I’d prefer to control what information my friends and family members see after I die. If I have tangible possessions like photo albums, then there’s no need for anyone to go snooping on the Internet for more memories. Let the scrap booking parties begin!

A Time Magazine article by Gaelle Faure inspired this entry: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1916317,00.html