Digital legacy: When you die, who's going to tell the internet?

After her husband Alan’s death, Gina Seymour found dealing with all his online accounts and virtual paperwork was “pretty close to a nightmare”.

Alan died in 2018, aged 57, after suffering a brain haemorrhage that meant he had been unable to prepare for what would happen to his online life.

“It was a struggle because you don’t realise or you forget how many accounts there are,” says Mrs Seymour, an author who works as a school librarian in Long Island, New York.

“Most of them are used every day, like your Gmail, and others only come up once in a while, or once a year, or you don’t use [them] as frequently.

“Just when you think you’re done, you’re actually not. You missed one. It’s stressful, to say the least.”

Mrs Seymour’s experience highlights the issue of “digital legacy”, the way in which almost everyone today has an online presence – and it often cannot simply be forgotten after their death.

Many of us have digital accounts for, at least, banking, investments, shopping, tax and messaging.

Pass on your password

According to password management company NordPass, the average person has 168 passwords, of which 87 are for business-related online accounts. That creates significant challenges for someone dealing with a loved one’s digital legacy, especially if that person did not leave behind account details and passwords.

“So many things in our lives have shifted online or have online components. The biggest problem is logistical headaches,” says Dr Jed Brubaker, an associate professor of information science at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“We have so many things that are new, that don't have pre-digital analogues. Maybe your partner was the person who managed your monthly mortgage payment and it went to their email, and all of a sudden you no longer have access to their email. You can think of all of the standard things that now have this additional digital layer.”

While these practical issues are important – and very taxing for surviving relatives dealing with them – a person’s digital legacy also encompasses things of great sentimental value, notably photographs and videos.

Items that were traditionally passed down, such as photo albums, now often exist only in a mobile phone or in the cloud in remote servers, and may be beyond the reach of relatives who do not have access credentials.

Dr Brubaker, who manages a free digital legacy clinic run by students, says photos are what bereaved relatives care about the most, although videos are becoming increasingly important.

“In end-of-life plans we’re ensuring that people have set them up such that their loved ones can gain access to what is effectively the modern-day scrapbook,” he says.

If the bereaved cannot view or download a relative’s pictures it can cause what James Norris, founder of the UK-based Digital Legacy Association, describes as a secondary loss.

“After you have lost someone, you can have a feeling of losing something else from that person,” he says.

Major internet companies, such as Apple, Facebook owner Meta and Google, typically have a legacy contact feature, enabling users to designate an individual to deal with their online presence on the respective service after their death.

“If you have set up plans in advance you are able to appoint someone you trust to access and download the photos and save them locally,” Mr Norris says.

The association recommends that individuals and health and social care providers consider their digital lives and digital assets during end-of-life planning.

“We’re based in a hospice,” he says. “Quite often the conversation we have with patients starts with: ‘Have you got a password on your mobile phone?’ They normally say 'yes'.

“If they haven’t told anyone their password, their digital legacy planning can start by simply telling their son or partner or grandchild their password so they can access their photos.

“The main thing is for each person to think about each of their online accounts and make suitable plans based on the content and the relationship with loved ones.”

Curate your digital legacy

People wanting to curate their digital legacy can turn to numerous specialist sites. Among them is Inalife, set up by Nicholas Worley, a British communications professional in Hong Kong. Mr Worley, the father of three young sons, was partly inspired to set up the site, which went live in 2023, by the experience of becoming a parent.

“I thought it would be quite nice if they could have memories of when they were younger – their first swimming lesson, their first steps, all those sorts of things,” he says.

Some of his father’s family’s photos in the UK were destroyed during the Second World War, which has highlighted to Mr Worley the risks of having only a single hard copy of an image.

“It’s easier to save things digitally and to have that as a back-up. I wanted to save things across generations, and technology helps you do that,” he says.

“Most people tend not to think about it unless they’re older or facing an illness. It’s the same with most legacy planning. Giving more attention to it is important.”

Users can create sub-profiles for relatives and sub-accounts for children, to whom ownership can be transferred at a particular time, such as when they turn 18.

When it comes to public sites such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn, people might want to consider how much of what they have uploaded they would like to remain on view after their death. Some people may prefer accounts to be deleted.

“Everything that we put online, it stays there, unless a company goes bankrupt or the site has a plan in place. There’s a lot of our lives out there online,” says Dr Heather Moorefield-Lang, an associate professor of information, library and research sciences at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.

“You have to make your choices as to what you might want people to shut down for you. Are you fine just leaving it out there?”

Dr Moorefield-Lang says many people are uncomfortable talking about death, dying and what will happen afterwards, but trying to sort things out after someone has died is no easier.

“Planning and communication takes care of a whole lot of issues later, if your kids and your friends aren’t sure what you want,” she says.

“You want to take as much off their shoulders as possible, even if it’s just sitting down and talking about it. It costs nothing but time.”

After the difficulties of dealing with her late husband’s digital legacy, Mrs Seymour has made sure that things will be easier for her children when she dies. She has written details of her online accounts and passwords in a book.

“I know the first rule of internet safety is ‘don’t write your passwords down’,” she says. “But you have got to write that stuff down. It’s in a book, it’s all there. The only people who know where it is are my children.”