Debate about your personal social media data in the afterlife

FACEBOOK on Thursday said it has finally decided how to handle the photos and friend requests of its deceased users.

In Facebook’s settings, people can now appoint a friend or family member to be in charge of their legacy. The person gets to make one last public post, download all their loved one’s Facebook photos, and respond to friend requests.

The decision was applauded by estate planners—especially because it gets around the issue of needing a password to get into people’s accounts.

Yet it doesn’t solve all the problems around online information after death.

For example, what happens if a user dies, and family members want to see private messages to get clues about whether it was a suicide?

Using their password to get into the account, which is banned by Facebook’s terms of service, would violate federal privacy laws, says James Lamm, a principal at a Minnesota firm in charge of estate planning.

Appointing a legacy account handler on Facebook also isn’t legally binding and doesn’t transfer any of the intellectual property on videos or poetry the person may have posted, he said.

For attorneys such as Lamm, who works at the estate planning group of Gray Plant Mooty, the infrastructure of the digital world has created countless barriers for clients seeking to access bank accounts, find answers surrounding a death, or simply collect all the memories they can about the person they lost.

Passwords, terms of service, encryption, and cloud storage all complicate the search for information required after a death.

“People get their income statements electronically; they get bills electronically; and if the fiduciary for the will doesn’t have access to that, it may lead to costs and delays, and we may be missing valuable financial assets,” Lamm says.

“Facebook’s move is a nice helpful step. I hope other companies follow suit.”

Some companies have particularly stringent policies. Here’s a brief guide on how to prepare your online identity for the afterlife.

Apple’s terms of service in the US say that if you die, you can’t designate anybody else to get into your account.

“Any rights to your Apple ID or content within your account terminate upon your death,” Apple’s iCloud terms in the US say.

“Upon receipt of a copy of a death certificate your account may be terminated and all content within your account deleted.”

— Bloomberg