Digital legacy: what happens to your accounts when you are gone?

It is not a pleasant subject, but it is an important one. What happens to your email, photos, banking and subscriptions when you are gone? Or if illness means you can no longer log in yourself?

Many people have not arranged this yet. For those left behind, it often becomes a long search.

What is a digital legacy?

Everything you have online:

• your email and the messages in it;
• your photos and videos;
• accounts with online shops, social media and streaming services;
• subscriptions that cost money every month;
• online banking and insurance.

What do families run into?

• They don’t know which accounts and subscriptions exist.
• They can’t get to the photos, because they are on a locked phone or in an account.
• Subscriptions keep running for months.
• Companies ask for all kinds of paperwork before they give access, and sometimes they give no access at all.

What you can arrange yourself

Make an overview. A list of all your accounts and subscriptions. SeniorWeb, a Dutch organisation that helps people with computers, has a handy checklist for this.

An emergency kit for your password manager. A good password manager gives you an emergency kit: one sheet with the details needed to open the vault. Keep it somewhere safe, for example in a sealed envelope with your will. That way your family can reach your passwords later, without anyone being able to look inside now.

A legacy contact with Apple or Google. Both companies have a setting where you say in advance who may access your account later.

Putting it in your will. A notary can include who may deal with your digital affairs.

How I help

I come round and we go through it together. I set up the password manager and create the emergency kit, set up the legacy contacts with Apple or Google, and we make the overview together. You stay in control: nobody can simply look inside your vault, not even me.

It takes a morning, and it saves your family a lot of worry later.