What happens to your online accounts when you die?

Digital is a new aspect of estate planning to consider

Today's expression: In progress
Explore more: Lesson #485
July 14, 2022:

In estate planning, it’s common to think about who will inherit personal possessions, bank accounts, investments, real estate, and other property. But we rarely consider what happens to our digital assets and accounts. This lesson dives into what happens when you die – digitally. Plus, learn “in progress.”

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Here’s what happens when you die … what happens to your online accounts, I mean

Lesson summary

Hi there everyone, I’m Jeff and this is Plain English, the best place to upgrade your English with current events and trending topics. Today’s lesson is number 485. JR is the producer and he has uploaded today’s full lesson to PlainEnglish.com/485.

Coming up today: What happens to your online accounts when you die? A lot of people are prepared for death with wills, estates, and beneficiaries of bank accounts. But as more of our lives move online, have you given any thought—as depressing as it may seem—to what happens to all your online property? That’s what we’ll be talking about in today’s lesson.

Here’s what happens (online) when you die

Most of us don’t think about death very often. When we do, we tend to think about people, faith, and property. The plan for what happens after you die, in a legal sense, is called “estate planning.”

In estate planning, it’s common to think about who will inherit personal possessions, artwork, bank accounts, investments, real estate, and other property. Depending on your family situation, you may specify who will take custody of children or pets.

But what about the things that exist purely online? You can easily leave a box of sentimental photos to a family member in a will. But what happens if those photos are on a phone with a password? Or on a Facebook account?

It’s a good idea to invest a little time now to think about what happens to your digital property when you die.

The first step is to know what you have. Many online accounts have no value after you die. Your Spotify account, for example, has nothing of interest to anyone. When you stop paying the bill, it will be deactivated. But some things are more personal and may be of interest to the people you leave behind.

Here are some things to think about: the contents of your phone, tablet and computer; social networks like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn; the contents of a photo sharing service like Flickr; files on a file-sharing or backup site like Dropbox; seller’s accounts on platforms like Etsy, Amazon, or eBay; blogs, web sites, and domain name registrations; and, finally , the keys to your cryptocurrency wallet.

The next thing to know is that you own very little of your online life. You can leave a box of sentimental photos to a family member because you own the photos. But you can’t leave your Instagram account to anyone because you don’t own the account. Most of what you think you “own” online is really licensed to you, and that license is either free or paid.

When you die, the license expires. The business can decide what to do with the files, messages, and the online account. And that varies. If you don’t do anything, you’re at the mercy of the terms and conditions—that long document you didn’t read.

So what happens if you die and nobody takes over an account? Here are a few examples. Yahoo mail may delete an account after just 90 days of inactivity. A year after that, the data will be gone forever. If you don’t log into Gmail for 24 months, Google may delete all the content. It will keep the account active.

On social media, another family member may choose to “memorialize” your account. A family member can contact Facebook, for example, with evidence of your death. If that happens, your account will be frozen. The public content will still be available; friends can share memories with the deceased person’s memorialized profile. A family member can request that the profile be deleted. But nobody can get access to the account without the password.

Some businesses allow heirs to access a deceased member’s content, but only with extensive documentation. Dropbox, for example, requires proof that a person has died and requires a court order stating that an heir has permission to access the data. If you haven’t planned in advance, your Dropbox files are frozen.

If you set a password on a computer, the data on the hard drive may be accessible, depending on how tight your security settings are. But chances are, relatives will discard an old computer or wipe it clean, and all your files will be gone.

If you have a web site or a blog, you probably pay for web hosting services and domain registration. Without a digital plan upon your death, the accounts will gradually lapse, the content will disappear, and the domain will be free for others to register.

For some people, all that is fine. Much of our online life is not worth preserving. But some of it might be. You might have e-mails from deceased relatives that you’d like to share with your kids or other relatives. Your kids might enjoy reading your own correspondence (if you’re comfortable with that). It would help them understand you better and preserve your legacy.

You might have a book in progress . You might have documented your memories in computer files. Others may want access to family photos stored on photo sharing sites. Candid photos of yourself may not mean much to you, but they might be comforting to those who survive. You might have a blog, podcast, or online business that you’d like to survive. Or, you might prefer that your data be completely deleted upon your death.

The point is, if you don’t plan in advance, you don’t get to control what happens. So on Monday’s lesson, we’ll talk about how to plan for a digital death.

Crypto investors beware

Here’s one I didn’t mention before. Crypto fans, watch out: If you don’t pass along the crypto key in your will, it’s possible those coins can’t be accessed by your heirs, even if you want them to be. There are extensive legal processes in place to pass along property, even bank accounts and investments, but none of that works in crypto. If you’re a crypto investor, and if you love having assets outside the traditional financial and legal system, you have a special obligation to your heirs to make sure they can access those funds when you die.

This topic is even more important if you’re an artist, business owner, or creator online. Imagine if you’re a musician, you’ve got work in progress, or even finished work that’s not saved anywhere else. Not to get too personal, but if it all ends for me tomorrow, I would want the contents of Plain English to live on. (Plain English Plus+ members can relax, I’ll leave instructions for JR to stop your payments!) So I’ll be taking careful notes during Monday’s lesson, for my own benefit.

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Expression: In progress