Have you ever received spam email from a friend who has passed away? Or been reminded by Facebook of a schoolmate's birthday who has only died weeks before? Though jarring, these encounters are a fact of life today. Our online accounts may well live long after we do.
How do we live on in the digital world?
This depends on the sites' service terms and what information you leave behind for family or your executor. For example, Facebook allows you to choose between memorializing your account or permanently deleting it. A memorialized account will remain active on Facebook for friends and family to post to and review previously posted images and content.
What about accounts where you purchase digital content?
Steam is a digital content delivery system that allows users to purchase and install various software to their PC. According to their agreement, the account is non-transferable and there is no a special provision to grant access to a family member or designated person. The purchased content is lost upon death of the original account owner.
In accounting, software packages are increasingly being moved into Software As A Service (SaaS) or cloud based offerings. This makes it even more important to determine what your rights are under the service agreement of that software.
Quickbooks online allows the account administrator to designate additional users of the service. However, only the account administrator can designate another administrator.
Sage One online indicates that the account is non-transferable but each paid subscription to the service is allowed two administrator accounts. Foresight in setting up a second account would be prudent with this product.
The best way to ensure that someone will have access to your online accounts is to make, and periodically update, a list of all your online accounts.. The list should contain user names and passwords for each account, sign-in links (URLs), and answers to any secret questions you may have configured. This information changes over time, so it is critical to keep this information in a place that it is easily accessible to you and in a format that can be readily modified. Provisions should be made to identify this list in any will or estate documentation that you create.
A software tool is an easy way to store this information. For example, KeePass Password Safe is a free tool that allows you to create a secure, encrypted, password protected list of all your user names, passwords, URLs, and other information that you wish to record in it. Make sure that you keep a backup copy of your password file and that you record your master password somewhere where it can be recovered by an authorized individual.
Like taxes, death is inevitable, but luckily most of us will have the time to prepare for it. If you are active online, especially with your business, planning is critical to manage your digital footprint in the afterlife.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
