3 On Your Side: How Prepared Are You For Digital Afterlife?
By Jim Donovan
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- No one wants to face the idea of their own mortality, but last week Facebook made users do just that -- giving the new option of choosing someone to maintain their profile after they die. The question of what happens to our virtual presence after death is becoming more of a real-life concern. 3 On Your Side Consumer Reporter Jim Donovan takes a look at what to consider about the digital afterlife.
Some described it as creepy, but others had asked for it for a long time. Last week Facebook started giving the option to select a friend or family member as a "legacy contact" who can post information to a page, respond to friend requests, and update a profile photo in the event of a user's death.
It's a good prompt to get millions of users thinking about what happens to our digital assets after we're gone. Naomi Cahn of George Washington University Law School says, "Such a large part of our lives is lived online, and we think that we will be able to manage them forever. We can't, and it does make sense for people to start being proactive."
A good starting point is to make a list of every account and every password -- especially things like domain names that could have value - just like items in a will. According to Cahn, "Take an inventory. Keep track of precisely what you have stored and where it's stored, and on which device you have actually stored it as well as whether it is all stored in the cloud."
It's all still an evolving space in the legal world. Each online service provider has a terms of service agreement, and many right now say accounts aren't transferable, passwords shouldn't be shared.
So when tech companies make it easy to navigate the process - like Facebook, or Google's "inactive account manager" tool, take advantage of it. Other companies will likely have to follow suit.
What do you think? Weigh in on Facebook!