These days, so much of our personal data is password protected. There is an easy guide to make a ‘legacy contact’ with Apple. It takes less than five minutes and it means that your ‘legacy contact’ (someone whom you can choose, possibly one of your Executors, to manage your affairs after your death) has access to all of your iCloud data. You have the option to either share the access key with your legacy contact during lifetime, notifying them that you have appointed them in that role or you can print a copy of the QR access code, which you can store with your Will and other important documents, so that the legacy contact has direct access at the time of your death. Without a legacy contact, an Apple account will be deleted after a period of time has elapsed and the iCloud account subscription has been unpaid. The link is – How to set up your digital accounts so that your loved ones can access them if you’re not able to | memories.step.org
Google, unlike Microsoft, has an option for you to give a legacy contact access to data with your ‘Google Inactive account manager’. You may choose to give your legacy contact access to your photographs on your Google drive but not your Gmail account, for instance. You may consider sharing your emails as they can hold valuable information that personal representatives may not otherwise know about (of course, your legacy contact could be one of your personal representatives in any event). This could save Estate money and time. The link for this is here – https://memories.step.org/update-your-legacy-settings/#google
Facebook can be a way for personal representatives or your legacy contact to inform friends and family, particularly those who are more far flung, of your death. If you would like this to happen then, as set out above, you would need to appoint such a legacy contact to manage your memorialised account. The legacy contact would be able to set up a tribute section to allow people to share comments, pictures and posts on a separate page. Please see – https://memories.step.org/update-your-legacy-settings/#facebook
In relation to LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Microsoft, there is currently nothing that you are able to do during your lifetime in relation to any of the accounts that you may hold with these four companies. The current practice is that your Executors or Administrators (if you die without a Will), would be able to provide proof of death to anyone or all of these companies which will then enable the account and information to be deleted.
As with so many other things in life, it is a good idea to keep these under review. So many companies change their rules concerning the accounts of deceased customers and therefore, just like reviewing a Will, we highly recommend that you review the company’s policies every five years or so, to see whether the steps you have put in place are still appropriate for your social media accounts. If we can assist further, please do not hesitate to contact Martyn Prowel Gartsides Solicitors on (029) 2047 0909.