Digital inheritance: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|Passing down of digital assets after a person's death}}

'''Digital inheritance''' is the passing down of [[digital assets]] to designated (or undesignated) [[Beneficiary|beneficiaries]] after a person’s death as part of the estate of the deceased. The process includes understanding what digital assets exist and navigating the rights for heirs to access and use those digital assets after a person has died.

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==Digital estate and digital assets==

{{main|Digital assets}}

The term ''digital estate'' refers to the inheritable digital assets included in a person’sperson's estate. This must includeincludes the digital media itself as well as the rights to have control over that media.<ref name=":1">Ferrante, R. E. (2013). The relationship between digital assets and their transference at death: It's complicated. ''Loyola Journal of Public Interest Law, 15''(1)'','' 37-62. https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/loyjpubil15&i=47</ref> A person’sperson's digital assets may be digital media that a person owns outright or has the rights to use according to a terms of service agreement. Assets may be stored either online or offline and include online accounts, any form of writing, images and other created static or dynamic content, or any digital content that has economic value. They may include sensitive information, such as banking and medical records, or shared information, such as social media contacts or forums. In contrast with physical assets, digital assets, particularly those stored online, are always vulnerable to change or deletion.<ref name=":0" />

Two principal issues arise over a person's digital estate. First, the inheritability of the digital content must be determined. Only digital content for which the deceased holds the copyright may be passed down to an inheritor. There is a distinction in law between full ownership and right-to-use licenses such as in software, digital music, film and books and there is legal precedent for denying resale or bequest of these.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=2010-09-13 |title=Appeals Court Destroys First Sale; You Don't Own Your Software Anymore |url=https://www.techdirt.com/2010/09/13/appeals-court-destroys-first-sale-you-dont-own-your-software-anymore/ |access-date=2023-08-08 |website=Techdirt |language=en-US}}</ref> Second, the heir or administrator of an estate must be able to access the content. This sometimes means navigating any online contracts or service providers’providers' terms of service agreements regarding their policies on user privacy and user death.<ref name=":1" /><ref name="Moneywise2">{{Cite web |date=2015-04-02 |title=Leaving a digital legacy {{!}} Moneywise |url=http://www.moneywise.co.uk/cut-your-costs/family-life/leaving-digital-legacy |access-date=2023-08-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402152830/http://www.moneywise.co.uk/cut-your-costs/family-life/leaving-digital-legacy |archive-date=2015-04-02 }}</ref>

== Obstacles to digital inheritance ==

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=== Digital estate plans ===

One method of ensuring that a digital inheritance is handled legally and comprehensively is to create a digital estate plan. This can be an informal plan or legally incorporated into a will in the form of [[digital will]]. The practical approach to is to keep a regular [[backup]] of digital assets in a secure place and appoint a single person who will postmortem deal with the assets. An up-to-date list of passwords to online accounts would be essential, as well as determining how each online account provider handles data access after a user's death.<ref name=":4" />

===Password managers===