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We put our entire lives online. Have you ever thought about what will happen to it all when you die? Will your relatives be able to access your photos and messages? And do you have the right to remove that information from the internet?
Paulius Ilevičius
Oct 14, 2021 · 4 min read
This is a sensitive and thorny issue with no clear legal guidelines, but we will give you a few tips on handling post-mortem data to minimize potential abuse and threats.
Most social media platforms allow you to close down the deceased person’s account, but whether the data it holds disappears is still an open question. Data collection is usually defined in terms and conditions agreements. When you are still alive, you can opt out of the service by canceling your agreement or even by trying to challenge it. When you die, however, you can no longer do this. The corporations continue owning your data and can even pass it to third parties. This is usually what happens to your data when you die.
For example, Google has no mechanisms to determine that specific data belongs to a deceased person. They can keep such data for an unspecified period of time. Even if someone asked Google to delete it, it might still exist on their backup servers. The same goes for other social media platforms.
Issues also arise with the data you purchase. Here again, the legal system has failed to catch up with technological advancements, which creates a gray area when it comes to post-mortem data. It’s not easy to transfer ownership of things you don't own. Even if you legally download data created by somebody, you don't technically own it — you just have the license to use it. This license expires when you die, so your relatives can no longer claim ownership.
You should prepare for the handling of your post-mortem data in advance. Otherwise, corporations will keep your data as their property and your significant others will have a hard time retrieving it. In 2020, for example, a man in the US had to battle Apple for months just to retrieve his murdered wife's family photos. Take these steps to avoid confrontations later on:
Here’s what constitutes your digital property and can be included in your testament:
Here's why it's important to manage the accounts of the deceased:
Here are a few tips on how to handle accounts of the deceased:
Of course, NordVPN is one of the many apps you or a loved one may have on their device. Our mission is to protect your data and keep it private, so we only store very minimal information about our users. However, if you do want to delete a NordVPN account, it's a very simple process, and won't take long.
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