Who Turns Off your Facebook When You Die?

Let's face it, our digital lives are completely intertwined with real lives. Everybody is connected digitally in one way or the other. We all have one or more of these services like e-mail, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. While we all manage them personally, what happens when we pass away? Who manages them to inform your friends and family that you are no longer around and how do you want your online life to be managed so that it will be delete or deactivated so that no one can hack or impersonate you?

As far as I know, there is no law in Canada allowing for the passing of your digital assets to your estate or beneficiary. Your digital assets is not the same as your physical and financial assets which can be passed on. This leaves a lot of problem for the survivors since online companies usually do not just allow anyone to get access to another person's account even if that person is deceased without going through some rigorous processes to prove death and that you are the person that has the authority to change or delete the account.

Currently in the U.S., there is a law that has been interpreted by the Wall Street Journal this way, "In 1986, Congress passed a law forbidding consumer electronic-communications companies from disclosing content without its owner's consent or a government order like a police investigation. Although that law predates the rise of the commercial Internet, courts and companies have largely interpreted it to mean that the families can't force companies to let them access the deceased's data or their accounts."

In short, when you die, your family cannot legally obtain access to your digital accounts. And most of these online companies are located in the U.S. and will follow U.S. law.

So how will you manage your digital life? The best way to do this is to create a document listing all your online accounts, username and password and keep it along with your Will. I have a template of this document and most of my clients have a copy of this template. I call it the "Last and Final Letter" which is a guide (not a Will) to the survivors on what and how you want things manage. The Last and Final Letter includes information about your bank accounts including online banking numbers and passwords, online accounts like Facebook, LinkedIn, e-mail accounts, etc.

If you are the executor, the process of deleting and deactivating account should be done slowly and in some cases, through a certain sequence. You may want to post an announcement first that person has passed away on their Facebook and LinkedIn account and that any communication coming from that deceased going forward should be ignored or reported (in case it was hacked). After a few weeks, start deleting them one by one starting with Social Network accounts like Facebook and LinkedIn and so on. The last thing to be deleted should be e-mail as these social network accounts usually connect to e-mail to verify deletion of the account.

E-mail should be kept longer and monitored so subscription can be unsubscribed and any correspondence replied to inform that the person is deceased. After which, the e-mail can be deleted as well.

Here's an article I found that provides a small guide about how an executor should handle digital assets.

Canadian law will continue to evolve and may address this issue in the future. But for now, this method should suffice as long as it is done properly and respecting the privacy of the deceased.