"Accounts like PayPal are really interesting because many of us have our PayPal accounts linked to our checking accounts and it's very easy to transfer money out of those accounts, so it's worth looking at it systematically, and thinking about, 'If so-and-so has access to this, then they might also have access to this,' and really thinking about [the] worst-case scenario of what could happen and safeguarding yourself against that."
- Evan Carroll, co-author of Your Digital Afterlife: When Facebook, Flickr and Twitter Are Your Estate, What's Your Legacy? (Voices That Matter)
In September 2009, Duncan Jefferies wrote “Preparing for the digital afterlife” for the Guardian. Unless you're an undertaker, chances are you spend as little time as possible thinking about death. Eventually, however, most of us get round to drawing up a will. Beneficiaries for houses, cars, stocks and shares must all be decided upon. But who gets your email account? Although people increasingly live their lives online, few bother to specify what should happen to their digital assets once they log off for good. But failure to plan for the digital afterlife can cause problems for those left to sort out the affairs of the deceased. Without a username and password family members can struggle to access valuable web domains, online accounts – even photographs and documents on a PC. "People aren't very aware of what you might call their living online legacy – potential employers looking at their Facebook accounts, for example. The issue of what happens to that information after their death is an extension of that," says Yorick Wilks, a senior research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute.
"It's our recommendation that you realize that anything of a financial matter should be executed according to your legal will as we like to call it — to provide a differentiation between your digital estate planning. That said, there are a lot of accounts that allow you to spend money and make money online that only exist online. I would recommend that you take steps and store those passwords so that your executor has access to them. Let's say, for instance, you may run an online business and may need to provide your business partner or spouse with that information."
- Evan Carroll, co-author of Your Digital Afterlife: When Facebook, Flickr and Twitter Are Your Estate, What's Your Legacy? (Voices That Matter)
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