Planning what happens to your digital life after death

CALGARY (CityNews) — Canadians have been building complex lives online for years.

While tabs for social media accounts, financial details, and communication tools stack ever higher in our browsers, experts recommend developing a plan for our digital life after death.

“It’s absolutely necessary to have a digital will, think of how much of our lives are digital — our banking, our photo collections, maybe even our Air Miles,” said Tom Keenan, a professor at the University of Calgary and author of ‘Technocreep‘.

“All of those things are going to go into chaos when you die.”

Our digital lives have evolved to become catalogues of personal accounts and details. Without a plan in place, Keenan warns that if someone passes away suddenly, it could mean completely losing important assets as well as priceless keepsakes.

“There may be things that nobody knows about that you have, you might have a secret bank account. There have been amazing cases of people who had Bitcoin and they die, and the money just vanishes because they never told anyone the password.”

Unsurprisingly, companies are beginning to offer services to manage digital assets ranging from music and videography to basic profiles.

Writing a will to determine what happens with social media posts and photos, cryptocurrency, and creative content is just one of Keenan’s recommendations.

“The best piece of advice for almost everybody is, use a password manager,” he said.

Keenan notes that in the hands of an executor or family member, decisions can be made about which accounts are important in the event of a sudden passing.

Additionally, Keenan says, any precious digital memories of deceased relatives or family pets can go to those still living to reminisce.

“If you don’t trust a password manager, try a USB stick. You can encrypt that, put it somewhere. But you don’t want to make someone chase your digital life.”

Keenan adds that once a person has made a list of passwords and accounts, it would be worthwhile to look into the laws and regulations of passing on more complicated details, like bank accounts.

While some may request to have their social media profiles pulled down, others may want them preserved. It’s for this reason that Keenan says it’s important to express last requests to the person trusted with the password list.