If you have specific wishes regarding the fate of your digital presence after you pass away, it’s essential to take proactive steps. Otherwise, the management of your online legacy will be left to chance, rather than your intentional choices. Your digital footprint encompasses various online accounts, including Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Apple, or Amazon. Preserving or losing this digital legacy is within your control.
Upon your demise, certain online accounts may persist indefinitely, while others may deactivate automatically after a period of inactivity. Additionally, some platforms offer specific protocols for granting access to family members or friends to manage your accounts posthumously.
In the first and second parts of this series, we discussed the post-mortem account management procedures provided by Facebook, Google, Instagram, Twitter, and Apple. In this third and final installment, we will explore the most effective strategies for integrating digital assets into your estate planning.
5 Steps For Including Digital Assets In Your Estate Plan
If you’re like most people, you likely own numerous digital assets, some of which may have significant monetary value, and others which have purely sentimental value. You may even have some digital assets that you’d prefer your family not access at all when you pass away.
To ensure these assets are managed in exactly the way you want, take the following five steps to include this digital property in your estate plan. While many of these tasks you can do yourself, you’ll definitely want to consult with us, your local Personal Family Lawyer® to ensure your estate plan is properly prepared and works exactly as you intend.
01 – Create A Detailed Asset Inventory, With Access Instructions
Start by creating a list of all digital assets you currently own. Then, for each asset, provide detailed information about where the asset is stored and how it can be accessed, including all of the relevant login information and passwords. If you have numerous different accounts, password manager programs, such as LastPass, can simplify this effort.
If you own cryptocurrency, it’s essential that you prepare detailed instructions about how to access it, and ensure that one or more people you trust are aware that you own crypto and know how to find your instructions. Additionally, accessing cryptocurrency often requires complex user identification data and private keys.
Moreover, to effectively manage these assets.the person you choose to control your crypto after your death will need to know how to use a variety of digital tools, such as online wallets, digital exchanges, and other programs. Given this, leaving a detailed “How To” guide can be an ideal way to ensure your loved ones can access your digital currency with minimal hassle.
After you’ve created your inventory and access instructions, store these documents in a secure location, with your other estate planning documents, and ensure your fiduciary (executor or trustee) and lawyer know how to access these documents should something happen to you. Finally, back up any digital assets stored in the cloud to a computer, flash drive, or other physical device to make them easier to manage. And remember to update your digital asset inventory regularly to account for any new digital property you acquire or accounts you close.
02 – Add Your Digital Assets To Your Estate Plan
The next step is adding your digital assets to your estate plan. As with other assets, you’ll typically pass your digital property to your loved ones through either a will or a revocable living trust.
From there, specify in your will or trust the person, or persons, you want to inherit each asset, and include detailed instructions for how you’d like each asset managed after your death, if that’s something you’re interested in. On the other hand, some assets might have no value to your family or be something you don’t want them to inherit or even access, so you should specify that those accounts be closed or deleted by your fiduciary.
One thing you should NEVER do is provide the account information, logins, or passwords in your planning documents, where others might read them. This is especially true for wills, which become part of the public record upon your death.
For maximum security, keep this sensitive information in a secure place, and let your fiduciary know how to find and use it. To make securing and managing your digital assets easier, consider using a digital management service, such as Directive Communication Systems, instead of trying to do everything yourself.
It’s also a good idea to include terms in your estate plan allowing your fiduciary to hire an IT consultant if necessary, especially if your fiduciary doesn’t have much technical experience, or if you have particularly valuable digital property. Having a consultant available can enhance your fiduciary’s ability to manage and troubleshoot any challenges that come up.
Alternatively, you can designate a separate co-fiduciary just to manage your digital assets. Known as a digital executor, this individual is specifically tasked with managing your digital assets upon your death. If you have a lot of digital property or you own highly encrypted digital assets, like cryptocurrency, this option can be an optimal solution for safeguarding your online property.
03 – Limit Access
Your estate plan also needs to include instructions for your fiduciary about the specific level of access you want him or her to have. For example, do you want your executor or trustee to be able to read all your emails, texts, and social media posts before deleting them or passing them to your heirs?
If there are any assets you want to limit and/or restrict access to, we can help you add the necessary terms to your estate plan to ensure your wishes will be honored and your privacy protected.
04 – Include Relevant Hardware
Your estate plan should also include provisions for passing on any physical devices—smartphones, computers, tablets, flash drives—on which your digital assets are stored. Having this equipment will make it easier for your fiduciary to manage your online assets. And since the data contained on such hardware can be wiped clean, you can even leave this gear to someone other than the person who inherits the data stored on the devices.
05 – Check Service Providers’ Access Authorization Tools
Review the terms and conditions for each of your online accounts and web-based service providers for how they handle your data after death. As discussed in the first two parts of this series, some platforms have features allowing you to give your family and friends the ability to access, manage, and delete your accounts after your death.
If such functions are offered, use them to document the individual(s) you want to access and manage these accounts. Just make certain those you named to inherit your digital assets using the providers’ tools match the beneficiaries named in your estate plan. If not, the provider will probably give priority access to the person named with its tool, not your estate plan.
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