Upon my death, delete: how to plan your digital legacy

Our favourite memories and important documents used to be kept as physical objects: photo albums, scrapbooks, postcards, contracts and certificates of ownership. That meant, when we died, these things would be relatively accessible to the loved ones we left behind.

In the internet era, a lot of that information is stored in the cloud. Everything from photos and videos to emails, documents and contracts, and even social media posts are not easily accessible without legacy planning.

Like me, many people also use social media for private journaling of family memories, in the hope those posts can still be seen in the future. Moreover, reminders from social media platforms about a deceased person can be painful and upsetting.

This is an issue that online platforms are increasingly aware of, and many now allow you to issue instructions for what should happen in the event of your death.

Depending on the platform, both preservation and deletion of your account are possible, but it does require forethought, and each platform has a different process.

In December of 2021, Apple introduced legacy contacts, allowing you to choose one or more trusted people to access your account after your death. You generate and share an access key with your nominated contact.

After you die, your contact will need to request access, provide the key you shared, and upload your death certificate to access your Apple account.

Upon approval, your legacy contact will have three years to view photos, messages, notes, files, apps and other data, and make decisions about what should happen to the information.

You can also choose to share specific data such as Google Calendar, Chrome, Pay, and Photos with nominated people for three months after the account becomes inactive.

Finally, you can also tell Google to delete your inactive account and all of its content. Deletion takes place three months after the account becomes inactive.

Facebook memorialises accounts when a family member or close friend lets them know of your death. Lastly, you also have the choice of having your account permanently deleted upon death. If you choose this option, when someone informs Facebook of your passing, the account will be permanently deleted.

Family members or authorised persons can only make requests to memorialise or close an account. However, other LinkedIn members can report a deceased person, and upon verification, the account is hidden from public view. Like Twitter, it also does not disclose usernames or passwords to anyone, including family members.

To date, Microsoft appears to have taken a very hands-off approach in dealing with the accounts of deceased users. It does not offer any way of nominating a next of kin to access the account, and the account is inevitably closed after two years of inactivity.