You have spent years cultivating memories with your Facebook profile, curating an audience with your Twitter account, and building an incredibly efficient agricultural operation on FarmVille.
Or maybe you have online stocks, undeposited Venmo funds, and iTunes credits.
These types of accounts are referred to as digital assets because they exist only in electronic or digital form, and almost everyone them.
Related post: Estate Planning in the Digital Age
But what happens to those accounts after you die?
What will become of the thousands of family pictures on Instagram or Flickr?
The answer to these questions depends on how well you plan and whether or not you have digital estate plan that says what you want to happen to your online assets.
Here are five tips to help you create a digital estate plan:
1. Make an Inventory of Digital Assets
To create a digital estate plan, you need to let your representatives know how to access your accounts after your death.
What information do your representatives need?
At the very least, a list of your accounts, usernames, and passwords. (We'll talk about how to keep this information secure in a minute.)
However you decide to store this information, creating an inventory of digital assets will make it much easier for your loved ones to access your Internet accounts after your death. Your digital inventory could include the following:
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other social media accounts
Wordpress, Tumblr, Blogger, and other blogs and websites you own
Bank, credit card, brokerage, retirement plan, credit, loan, insurance, and other accounts you access and/or pay online
E-mail accounts
Online retail accounts
Apps from stores or marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, and iTunes
Photo- or video-sharing sites like Flickr or YouTube
Video subscription sites like Netflix, Huhu, or Amazon Prime
Music sites like Spotify or Pandora
PayPal or other online payment accounts
Utility bills you pay online
Frequent flier accounts
Additionally, any “digital wallets” or Passport products on your cell phone (e.g., a Starbucks app that lets you pay for orders from your phone) are also worth adding to the list.
Related post: An Overview of Your Digital Assets
Update this list regularly or whenever you create a new account or change account information.
2. Store Information in a Safe Place
Security should always be a concern when it comes to storing this sensitive information.
Outside of physical options like a safety deposit box, some websites like SecureSafe securely encrypt and store your account information and passwords in one place.
I personally use LastPass, which has a free (but still secure) option as well as a paid subscription that costs only $1/month.
Most of these password-storage sites allow you to designate a beneficiary who can get access to the account after your death, making it easy to pass on your account information to your heirs or representatives.
3. Name a “Digital Executor”
This can be the same person you name as executor of your estate in your Will, or you can name someone else to carry out your digital wishes.
If you do choose to designate a separate person to manage your digital assets, you may also consider naming him or her as your digital executor in your Will, detailing what assets they can control and where they can find information to access those accounts.
Some websites allow you to automate the transfer of your digital assets after your death.
One example is Google's Inactive Account Manager. Here's how it works: You give Google instructions for what to do with your accounts after your death (i.e., either share them with someone(s) or delete them).
If you are inactive for a certain period of time (you can decide how long), Google will send you a text or email alert. If you do not respond, Google will notify the friends or family members whose contact information you provided.
Once they have confirmed that you are deceased, Google will follow your instructions and either share those accounts with the designated individual(s) or delete the accounts as you have provided.
Similarly, Facebook has given users the option of identifying a "legacy contact" that can access your account after your death.
But that access is limited to the ability to pin a post on your Timeline, such as a funeral announcement. Your legacy contact will not be able to log in as you or read your private messages, but they will have the ability to accept or deny new friend requests, update your profile and cover photos, and archive your posts and photos.
Even though these "legacy" processes are automated, it is important to let your executor know that have set up those options, so he or she does not have to figure out what to do with those accounts.
4. Leave Instructions for Your Representative
Your Will probably lays out the distribution of your financial assets, but what do you want to happen to your Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram profiles?
Consider leaving a letter of instruction of “to-do” list to let your digital executor know, among other things, what they should do with your accounts. Include information such as:
Should your digital executor deactivate your Facebook account when you die, or do you want him or her to set it up as a memorial page?
Should your executor to send photos from your Flickr account to family members?
Do you want to give someone control of any unused iTunes credits you have?
Do you want any personal videos uploaded to YouTube for friends and family to see (or taken off of YouTube so they don’t see them)?
Should your executor liquidate your cryptocurrency accounts?
As you create this to-do list, be sure to review the terms of service on your social media accounts. As mentioned above, Facebook gives your “legacy contact” only two options.
First, your legacy contact can “memorialize” your profile so family and friends can see it and post on your wall. Alternatively, Facebook can deactivate the profile at the request of your family.
These user agreements generally take precedent over state laws.
Related post: 3 Magic Ingredients in a Great Letter of Instruction
Twitter, on the other hand, only gives the option of deactivating your account.
To do this, your executor would need to fax Twitter copies of your death certificate and government-issued ID (e.g., driver’s license), along with a signed and notarized statement of your death, and either a link to an online obituary or a copy of the obituary from a local paper.
5. Talk to an Estate Planning Attorney
In today’s world, it is common for people to have much of their lives online: personal information, pictures, journals, and memories. But you can avoid the uncertainty of what happens to your online accounts after death by creating a digital estate plan.
To learn more about estate planning options, or to talk about updating your existing estate plan, contact the experienced Oklahoma City estate planning attorneys at Postic & Bates for a free, no-obligation consultation appointment.
David M. Postic is an attorney at Postic & Bates, P.C. His practice focuses on estate planning, probate, real estate, trust administration, business planning, and adoption.
You can email David through our Contact Us page or by calling our office at (405) 691-5080.
[As with all our blog posts and other publications and resources, the contents of this article do not constitute legal advice and are subject to our site-wide disclaimer.]
