PLANNING FOR OUR DEATH
As the saying goes, there is no avoiding death and taxes. This page is not about taxes.
Step 1 is deciding who to trust. Then:
If your passwords are stored on paper, xerox the paper and give the copy to your trusted person. Of, if you use a password manager, maybe print the passwords using the software and, again, give that to your trusted person.
Techies that own a domain and/or own a website, need to make special provisions. Both will be lost if the payments are not kept up.
PLANNING FOR CHANGE
The problem with making plans is that the world is always changing. BIG CHANGE: Perhaps you no longer trust the person you used to trust. SMALL CHANGE: passwords get changed. New accounts get created.
What to do in 10 or 20 years when you no longer trust the person you gave all your passwords to? No one wants to always be giving new accounts and updated passwords to their trusted person.
One future proof solution: If you use a Password Manager you could give your trusted person the master password. This way as new accounts are created and passwords are changed on old accounts, the trusted person does not have to know or care. This also solves the bigger issue, of no longer trusting someone. Should this happen, simply change the master password and give the new one to your newly trusted person. The no-long-trusted person will have no idea you did this, at least not for a while.
BUREAUCRACY
Some companies have a whole system created for passing the control of an account after someone has died. I can't see that any of them are worth bothering with. We all deal with many different companies, no one deals with just one tech company. It seems better to pass the critical information one way rather than deal with multiple systems and their inherent red tape.
Apple has a system called Legacy Contact, or, Digital Legacy. Two names for the name system or two different systems? I don't know and I don't care as this just proves my point, not to use either. Both Facebook and Instagram also have a "legacy contact" system. The Google entry in this arena is their inactive account manager. YouTube also allows users to assign an Inactive Account Manager. Microsoft has no such system, that I am aware of.
IOS
You can save your loved ones grief, if you share with them your iPhone passcode and/or your iCloud credentials. Apple has a complicated system, called Digital Legacy, for allowing your survivors access to most, but not all, of your data.
ARTICLES
February 21, 2025: Encryption isn't wise by Susan Bradley for Ask Woody. Quoting: "... encryption is a very bad idea if you've made no plans for someone else to ... handle getting back into a 'thing' that is encrypted. I can't tell you how many times I’ve been asked how to remove an encryption password from an Excel file that someone used to store their passwords." A short article from someone who's father is 97 and clearly thinking about these things.
June 6, 2024: You can inherit a dead relative's GOG account - if you have a court order by Kyle Orland for Ars Technica. Gaming platform GOG is ready and willing to help users transfer their accounts in the event of their death. Not so much, Steam. The take away from this is to follow the advice at the top of the page, as dealing with individual companies and their unique rules and policies just makes a bad situation worse.
December 9, 2023: Your loved ones need access to your phone once you've passed away by Jerry Hildenbrand for Android Central. The first hand experiences of a techie whose father just passed away. He suggests using the systems created by Google or Apple for handling this, I disagree.
April 22, 2023: Before You Die, Secure Your Digital Life by Julie Jargon for the Wall Street Journal (so paywall). Ms. Jargon says that it is not enough to keep a list of account passwords, because you might forget to update it. Still, this is the far better option than all the other stuff in this article. It starts with how a few password managers let you designate someone to get your passwords when you die. To me, this is too complicated. And, you may change password manager software in the future. It is far better to write the down the master password for the password manager. The article also discusses "legacy contacts" for Apple, Google and Facebook. Here too, these systems strike me as way too complicated for someone grieving to deal with. Again, better to just write down the passwords somewhere that your loved ones know where they are.
May 8, 2023: How do social media platforms deal with dead users' accounts? by Diego Mendoza for Semafor.
May 8, 2023: Planning for the final digital divide by Susan Bradley for AskWoody.com. This is behind a paywall.
December 28, 2022: 6 easy fixes to avoid tech headaches in 2023 by Heather Kelly for the Washington Post. Topics in the article include preparing for your death.
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