What Happens to Your Online Accounts When You Die?

Not, surprisingly, the government wants to outline the terms of access. NyPo reports:

The Uniform Law Commission, whose members are appointed by state governments to help standardize state laws, was on track Wednesday to endorse a plan that would give loved ones access to – but not control of – the deceased’s digital accounts, unless specified otherwise in a will.

To become law in a state, the legislation would have to be adopted by the legislature. If it did, a person’s online life could become as much a part of estate planning as deciding what to do with physical possessions.

“Our email accounts are our filing cabinets these days,” said Suzanne Brown Walsh, a Cummings & Lockwood attorney who chaired the drafting committee on the proposed legislation. But “if you need access to an email account, in most states you wouldn’t get it.”

But privacy activists are skeptical of the proposal. Ginger McCall, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, said a judge’s approval should be needed for access, to protect the privacy of both the owners of accounts and the people who communicate with them.

“The digital world is a different world” from offline, McCall said. “No one would keep 10 years of every communication they ever had with dozens or even hundreds of other people under their bed.”

Many people assume they can decide what happens by sharing certain passwords with a trusted family member, or even making those passwords part of their will. But in addition to potentially exposing passwords when a will becomes public record, anti-hacking laws and most companies’ “terms of service” agreements prohibit anyone from accessing an account that isn’t theirs. That means loved ones technically are prohibited from logging onto a dead person’s account.

But instead of getting government involved, there are free market solutions that are in the early stages of emergence. Here's NyPo again:

Several tech providers have come up with their own solutions. Facebook, for example, will “memorialize” accounts by allowing already confirmed friends to continue to view photos and old posts. Google, which runs Gmail, YouTube and Picasa Web Albums, offers its own version: If people don’t log on after a while, their accounts can be deleted or shared with a designated person. Yahoo users agree when signing up that their accounts expire when they do.

My guess is that over time, if free market alternatives would be allowed to develop, tech providers would provide options and leave it up to individuals as to what they would want to happen to their internet accounts.

-RW