Well, it depends which on-line stuff you are talking about. On Thursday May 12th we investigated this topic and found out that the policies were very different for different services.
Facebook seems to leave your profile up there, and it offers friends and family the opportunity to “memorialise” a deceased person’s Facebook persona. See: “Social media afterlife: What happens to Facebook after you die?” https://bare.com.au/blog/social-media-accounts-facebook-instagram-twitter-after-death#What-happens-to-your-Instagram-after-you-die
Apple takes Privacy seriously: “In its iCloud legal agreement, Apple mandates that there is “No right of Survivorship,” for your Apple ID account and its contents. And, indeed, “upon receipt of a copy of a death certificate your Account may be terminated and all Content within your Account deleted.”” …Next of kin will need a court order to get hold of the stuff. It’s very complicated and the best thing is to let your next of kin know your Apple ID and Passcode before you die. https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/01/02/what-to-do-about-apple-devices-and-icloud-content-when-the-owner-dies
Microsoft: If you don’t make a plan for your outlook.com account (and no one hacks into it), your account will be deleted after 12 months of inactivity. Microsoft permits surviving “family members” who have login information to access the deceased person’s account…which may be a problem if you want to keep this stuff secret! https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-will-happen-my-outlookcom-account-when-i-die.html
Dropbox: Positively encourages next of kin to poke around in the deceased person’s computer! …otherwise getting access to the stuff would be a faff.
To access the files of someone who has passed away, first look in the Dropbox folder on the person’s computer if you can. Many Dropbox users have all of the files from their account available in this folder, which syncs to their account online.
Google: This is a bit complicated. If you do nothing, then the account (and all the stuff associated with the account) will be terminated after nine months of inactivity . However, you can set things up so that you can extend up to 18 months (or shorten) the time before the stuff is deleted and set up “trusted contacts” – people who you authorise to download your data before your account is deleted. “Inactive Account Manager is a way for users to share parts of their account data or notify someone if they’ve been inactive for a certain period of time.” https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/3036546
Chris thought it a bit much that the next of kin had to download data and videos, or move photos to their own Google photos accounts. Wouldn’t it be easier if they were just granted access to manage the stuff which was left up there?? It would be nice for shared photo albums (and documents for that matter) to remain where they are, so that people they were shared with could reference them in future years. It’s probably worth checking to see if there are any sites which can store images/documents “in perpetuity” — or perhaps we should return to printing photographs and texts – since the paper medium is the one which has lasted for centuries, and is independent of technology.
The bottom line it’s probably worth leaving your next of kin a printed copy of your login and passwords…and don’t forget your smartphone, and its pin… All they would have to do is keep the account active – would looking at it be enough?…and it won’t get deleted.
Of course, the rules could change at any moment!
Christine Betterton-Jones – Knowledge junkie May 13th 2022