Planning Your Digital Legacy: A Practical Guide
The transmission of your digital life deserves to be prepared, just like the other elements of your estate and personal affairs.
With simple organisation, it is possible to identify your accounts, choose the people to whom certain information can be transmitted, and leave precise instructions. The objective is not to transmit your entire private life, but to decide in advance what should be kept, transmitted, or deleted.
Taking Stock of Your Accounts and Digital Information
The first step is to take an inventory of your digital life. This may seem tedious, but it quickly helps you realise the number of services used daily.
These can include email accounts, social media, online storage services, subscriptions, government platforms (such as HMRC in the UK, IRS in the US, or ATO in Australia), or services used for work.
You should also consider information that does not necessarily correspond to an account. You may wish to transmit personal instructions, contact details for a loved one, the location of certain documents, or indications about your subscriptions.
The most important thing is not to wait until a loved one has to search for this information in an emergency.
Choosing Who Can Receive Certain Information
Digital transmission does not necessarily mean giving access to all your data to one person.
Needs can vary greatly depending on the information. A spouse may need certain personal information, while a child may receive family documents. Other elements may be intended for a trusted person or your digital executor.
This distinction allows you to maintain true control over your digital life.
With Asfaly, information can be organised in your vault and associated with the beneficiaries chosen by the account holder. This makes it possible to prepare targeted transmission rather than providing indiscriminate access to the entire vault.
Defining Your Directives
Once you have listed your information and chosen your beneficiaries, you need to determine what you want to happen to your data.
Some information will need to be transmitted. Other data may be kept for a certain period. Some data or accounts may, on the contrary, be intended for deletion.
These choices constitute your directives regarding your digital life.
It is advisable to review them regularly. An email address changes, a subscription is cancelled, a family relationship evolves, or a new account is created. Digital transmission must therefore remain modifiable throughout your life.
What Tools Can You Use to Organise Your Digital Transmission?
Several tools can be complementary.
The Asfaly digital vault allows you to centralise and secure the information you wish to prepare for transmission after your death. It can be used to store information about accounts, digital services, and instructions for beneficiaries.
Your will can also play a role in estate planning. It allows you to organise certain wishes within the legal framework of succession. However, it should not be considered a simple replacement for a digital vault containing login credentials or confidential information.
A solicitor or estate planner can finally assist with succession procedures and advise on how to integrate certain digital elements into a broader estate organisation. In the UK, you may work with a probate solicitor; in the US, an estate attorney; in Australia, a succession lawyer.
These solutions do not address exactly the same need. Their complementarity allows for better organisation of transmission.
A Practical Guide to Forget Nothing
Preparing your digital life can be done progressively. To support you, we have created a practical guide dedicated to digital transmission after death.
The guide proposes a 10-step approach, from inventorying accounts to organising beneficiaries and directives. It also helps you reflect on the information to keep, the people to notify, and the tools that can be used to organise this transmission.
Anticipate Today to Avoid Difficulties Tomorrow
The question is ultimately not how to access a loved one’s digital life after their death. It is often much simpler to prepare this transmission during your lifetime.
A phone can remain locked. A password can be unknown. An account can be protected by two-factor authentication. A platform can apply its own procedures after the user’s death (such as Google’s Inactive Account Manager or Apple’s Legacy Contact).
Preparing your information can considerably reduce these difficulties.
Asfaly allows you to organise this process in advance, keep chosen information in a secure environment, and define the people to whom it can be destined.
Preparing your digital succession is ultimately leaving your loved ones something precious: answers, at the moment when they need them most.
