Calls for a Straightforward Process for Accessing Digital Assets after Death
Family planning advisory organisation, STEP and Queen Mary University of London have completed a project that has identified an urgent need to give families better access to their loved one’s digital assets after they die.
It comes as there has been an exponential growth of interest in digital images, emails, and social media accounts becoming part of estate planning and administration as technology continues to occupy our daily lives.
500 professional inheritance advisors surveyed in the project found that 60 percent were asked questions relating to digital assets and 90% of these also expect demand to increase in the future.
Digital assets can include any of the following:
- Photos saved online or on a cloud
- Social media accounts
- Email accounts
- Ecommerce or marketplace accounts (i.e., Amazon and eBay)
- Online gaming accounts
- Online accounts for utilities
- Online banking
- Any other personal information that can be stored on a computer, mobile, or tablet
In the survey, people commonly asked questions about social media, email accounts, cryptocurrencies, and cloud storage platforms. The top providers most enquired were Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, and Dropbox for retrieving digital assets stored in the cloud.
The survey also found that almost 25% of them had clients who had experienced difficulties accessing the digital assets of a family member, which caused them a degree of stress and frustration. More than 85% of respondents agreed that online storage providers should provide a better solution for accessing cloud accounts after the death or incapacity of their consumers.
The problem comprises of lack of clarity when it comes to the terms and conditions of what happens to customer accounts and data stored in the cloud when the customer passes away, if there is any at all. A separate study in a report from December 2018 identified that 85% of the agreements for consumer cloud services did not explicitly address these issues.
There are steps already underway to resolve the problem. Apple announced in June they are to launch a new feature that enables their users to pass information stored by them following their death. The new feature is set to launch this month as part of the digital legacy feature within the iOS 15 update.
Professor Christopher Millard of the Cloud Legal Project at Queen Mary University of London said “The Law Commission of England and Wales is currently reviewing the property status of digital assets under English law. We look forward to their recommendations and we hope that they will address the urgent need to update succession law for the 21st century”.
View the full study from STEP here.
If you have an interest in creating or updating an existing Will to include digital assets why not get in touch with our Probate team? You can learn more about our Probate services here or call 023 8023 4433 to speak to someone today.
Disclaimer: Information on this webpage is not intended for legal purposes or advice. If you require legal advice or services, you should seek a professional legal practitioner.
