Your Online Data Doesn’t Have To Die With You

Your e-mails, your photos, your bank records, your personal blog, your passwords: what happens to your online information when you die? That’s the question posed by Marc Davis, partner architect with Microsoft, who spoke at a SXSW panel called “Demystifying Online Privacy and Empowering the Digital Self.” As Davis explains, the problem stems from a lack of legal proceedings regarding a person’s online property after death:

Usually, where commerce and society meet legally is the concept of property. What’s missing is a concept of contract law and property rights for digital information.

While people usually have a will devoted to their physical belongings, most never consider the fate of their digital property, which could have financial or personal value to their loved ones. Davis suggests creating a digital will with instructions on how to access your online info and what you want done with it (there are even some startups in place, like Legacy Locker and Entrustet, who know ways to handle the issue):

Every life phase we go through where we’ve established structures, documents and contracts to handle property and identity—birth, marriage, divorce, retirement—we’ve created as a civilization ways to handle the movements of rights and assets. So we’re at that time in history now where we’re applying these metaphors and frameworks onto the digital realm.

[Via Popular Mechanics]