Protect your digital legacy

When a person's life ends, there are emotionally difficult but legally required actions to be taken by the family members and close friends left behind. In this period where social media is used extensively, how to manage digital assets after a death is also an important issue. Additionally, scammers often target the accounts of deceased people or their grieving loved ones.

It's important to know exactly how to prepare and protect your digital legacy and what else you can do in advance to reduce the emotional and physical burden on your loved ones. ESET, the world leader in cyber security, shared information about the measures that can be taken against digital heritage fraudsters. 

Can you imagine what is left behind when a life ends? Family heirlooms, estates, and  other tangible assets…  Now think about all the digital assets you will leave to your loved ones to manage. Email accounts, shared photos, passwords, playlists, social media profiles and smart devices. The difference is that they become completely inaccessible after you die, further complicating an already traumatic process for your friends and family. Even worse, your digital legacy may even be the target of malicious actors. It's important to know exactly how to prepare and preserve your digital legacy and what else you can do in advance to reduce the emotional and physical burden on your loved ones. You should also know what will happen if you suddenly find yourself in the same situation.

Can a digital legacy be left?

One of the biggest challenges is related to social media and password management. While banks, tax authorities and card companies have well-rehearsed processes for closing accounts after death, many digitally focused companies still treat death as an "unusual situation," according to the OpenID Foundation. From a legal perspective, inheritance laws often do not cover digital assets, online policies can be “vague” and tools can be scattered.

What are the risks?

For friends and family members who have lost loved ones, the emotional blow of losing a loved one can be amplified if they are unable to recover the deceased person's digital assets. It can feel bad when social media algorithms bring up unwanted memories in the form of birthday notifications or tagged photos. There is also a financial impact of not being able to access cryptocurrencies and other assets that need to be transferred to you.

Scammers are also looking for an opportunity to make money. First, they scan obituaries and social media posts, looking for personal information they can use to impersonate the deceased. Afterwards, they even try to open new credit limits by deceiving credit card companies.  The challenge for banks and government agencies is that when victims do not actively monitor their accounts, such scams can continue for much longer than they otherwise would. Scammers may also target the family of a recently deceased person. For example, they can create post-mortem deepfake videos demanding money or information from relatives by collecting their images from the web. Or they may hijack the deceased's social media accounts to do the same thing. They may even act like an insurance company, charging a fee to release life insurance funds. Or they may be a fictitious "account recovery" service provider that claims to provide access to your loved ones' digital assets for a fee.

What you can do to manage digital legacy risk

The first thing you need to do is sit down and organize your or your loved one's digital legacy together. Create a digital inventory of all important accounts, devices and assets, including login information. This process can be complicated if you use password keys or digital wallets to store passwords. 

Most major tech companies offer the ability to delegate access to a "legacy contact," but if you don't use this opportunity before you pass away, no one will likely be able to access your accounts.The main services are:

• Facebook/Instagram Legacy Contact
• Google Inactive Account Manager
• Apple Digital Legacy
• Some password management services, such as 1Password, LastPass, and Keeper, also offer “emergency access” or similar features

But you should also be aware that permissions for the above may be restricted, which can limit what you can access and do once you're in. But it should at least be possible to secure them or turn them off completely. This is assuming you don't need them to get one-time passwords. Then, it is necessary to inform public and private institutions about the deceased. You can prevent financial fraud by monitoring for unusual activity. Revoke his driver's license and freeze his bank and credit card accounts, deleting them when it is safe to do so. Cancel any ongoing subscriptions you find. Avoid sharing too much information in your obituary as scammers may be watching. Also ensure that all friends and family members are alert to possible scam attempts.

The above may not be as easy as it sounds, especially if you are busy with your own grief and the multitude of tasks that need to be done following the death of a loved one. Therefore, it is important to plan as far in advance as possible by providing legacy contact information to major tech platforms.