Tech Life After Death

Why would someone be interested in managing their online life after they are dead?

The notion of managing a Facebook, Google +, PayPal, or Twitter account after you are dead may sound silly at first glance, but there is a bit of wisdom in it. First of all, of course the deceased wouldn’t be the person actually managing the account, but what it does is places a plan in place to make the dissolution of a digital account and all of its assets easier without the need for court orders or submitting paperwork to the service provider. View it as a type of estate planning.

What are some of the options and how do they work?

One of the first that come to mind is a service called DeathSwitch. What this service does is allow you to send out a post-mortem message to family, friends, and business associates. This email can be a custom message with attachments. After you have the service, an email is sent to you at the frequency that you set to and you must respond to the email from the service to determine that you are alive.

Other services such as Legacylocker, Entrustet, and Passmywill all operate in a similar fashion. The main difference is that where DeathSwitch only sent out emails, these other services not only send out emails but also passwords and access to your various online accounts.

Are there any other options?

Sure. There are offline options to manage your online identity. One of the simplest is to either use a password manager like Keepass to store all of your account passwords, save it to a thumb drive and make sure that your estate executor, lawyer, or just someone that you trust and feel will out live you has access to it. You can also set up a password protected spreadsheet with the same information. So, yes you have other options.

How much do the options that you mentioned cost?

They range from free of charge to $20-$30 per year depending on the option and service that you choose.

Websites


http://www.deathswitch.com
http://www.legacylocker.com
http://www.entrustet.com
http://www.passmywill.com
http://keepass.info