What happens to your digital assets?
What will happen to your digital assets?
When you think about estate planning, you usually think about your money, your property and any other physical assets you may have such as jewellery or items of sentimental value. But have you ever thought about what will happen to your digital assets when you are gone?
What are digital assets?
Your digital assets could include:
- your email accounts (such as Gmail or Hotmail)
- your social networking accounts (such as Facebook or Twitter)
- your shopping accounts (such as eBay or iTunes)
- bill payment accounts (such as energy or telephone services)
- your online banking (your bank account, your shares, your super). With the advancement of cloud technology, even files such as photos, letters, videos, artwork and music are often stored online. When you stop to think about it, it may be surprising how many digital assets you own.
Tracking down digital assets can be difficult
Sorting through a deceased’s online life can be very daunting, especially as these applications can contain so much personal information. Sometimes people don’t want their loved ones reading their private emails or messages – which could be the cause of some distress.
It is also very time consuming. These days, not only are we encouraged to create different logins and passwords for each application but also to avoid storing them all in one place – so it’s often very difficult, sometimes impossible, to track these down after the death of a loved one.
Legal access to online accounts
Getting access to these accounts quickly can be important, but sometimes family members may have to go to court to obtain authority to access this information.
This can cause a delay in granting access to funds on which loved ones are reliant or delay the payment of bills that causes services to be disconnected. It can also leave the account vulnerable to identity theft – no-one is able to check the account or verify the transactions.
Upon establishment of the account, the user would have been required to accept the terms and conditions and, although vague, these often include a deceased-user policy. If an account cannot be accessed, important memoirs or documents with sentimental value such as photos could be lost so it’s important to check the terms and conditions carefully. Have a look on the relevant website for the terms and conditions.
Protecting your digital assets
Protecting your digital assets is a relatively new phenomenon so there is no prescribed solution. It’s important to remember that if you give your personal login details to a family member you run the risk of them misusing this information.
Perhaps the best way to protect your digital assets is to create a document that contains details of your digital assets, and the way you wish them to be used after you have gone. This type of document could be stored with your Will in a safe place – with a professional trustee company for example. Alternatively, keep a separate list of your usernames and your passwords, and put them in the care of two separate highly-trusted parties.
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