How many accounts, or how much information do you have on-line with banking, e-commerce, email, social networks, and such? What happens to these on-line accounts after death? Does your executor have access to these digital assests, does your family, does a friend? Who controls this information after death?
You may be surprised just how confusing and difficult it can be to access or delete on-line data after death. Jesse Davis of Entrustet talked to me after his Pecha Kucha presentation during High Tech Happy Hour in Madison, WI. Jesse talks about the Justin Ellsworth court battle with Yahoo to access emails and accounts after their son's death. This also raised question on if Justin wanted his parents to have access, and what about estate planning.
Watch this ViodiTV video to hear Jesse Davis talk about three types of digital assets; (1) economically valuable; (2) sentimental; and (3) private accounts. Jesse also addresses the future issues of posting too much personal information on-line, and how this could impact the future of politics. How will the youth of today run for public office when so much private information is public. Produced by Roger Bindl HEM Productions, for ViodiTV.
One reply on “People Die, Profiles Don’t”
Jeremy Toeman saw this as an issue as well and started this company:
http://legacylocker.com/
I solve it, of course, like most people by putting my user ID and password next to my PC 🙂