A
number of services can help with digital estate planning by designating
password recipients or deleting accounts or files when you die. But
communication and privacy laws have yet to catch up with technology.
Planning for digital assets is
becoming more and more important as our daily lives become more involved in the
technological world. What arrangements have you made for your digital assets
when you are no longer here to manage the accounts?
Digital estate planning is a hot
topic, especially for today’s “connected” generations. Regardless whether they
can remember life before the microchip, Americans now live a significant part
of their lives digitally. Not only is this new life overwhelming for end-users,
but the very architects of our digital world are confounded with the
intersection of digital life and death.
A recent article in ScienceNews titled “Computer scientists grapple with how to
manage the digital legacy of the departed,” considers the issues
confronted by computer scientists with Congress not far behind.
When it comes to estate planning
for your digital assets there are a few tools like the “inactive account
manager” from Google.
Overall, however, the field is simply too new.
Fortunately, the key to planning
for your digital assets really is not – legally – all that different from
planning for your non-digital assets. A good start is listing all of your
digital accounts and passwords, then making sure the agents and fiduciaries
over your estate plan can access them when needed.
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Reference: ScienceNews
(June 10, 2013) “Computer scientists grapple with how to
manage the digital legacy of the departed”