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How do you want your social media pages, smartphone photos and computer files handled after you die? While property and money distribution are usually at the top of the estate-planning list, don’t forget to leave instructions regarding your digital accounts and assets — so your survivors are left with more than justrandom bits and pixels from your online presence.
Here’s a short guide to getting your digital material in order, as well as advice for dealing with the accounts of those who departed without leaving directions.
Create a Digital Directive
A law known as the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, enacted by most states, gives a chosen representative (like your estate’s executor) the autority to manage your electorjnic affairs. For specific instructions, create a document stipulating how you want your online accounts and all digital content handled when you die or become incapacitated, and keep it with your other estate papers.
Giving access to your account user names and passwords will greatly help your representative, but proceed carefully. You will need a safe place to list the credentials for all your financial institutions, as well as for any e-commerce stores, insurance policies, online storage, email, social media platforms, cable and wireless carriers, medical apps, and media subscriptions.
Don’t forget to note the passwords and passcodes needed to get into your password manager app, phone, computer or tablet; most manufacturers can’t bypass a PIN code without erasing the device. Your survivors may need your contact list to tell people you’ve passed, and they may need to keep your phone accessible for any necessary two factor authentication codes.
Designate a Legacy Contact
Along with compiling your digital directive and passwords, you should consider adding someone you trust as a “legacy contact” for your Apple, Google, Facebook and other accounts. A legacy contact is the person you choose to directly handle that account after you’re gone.
