So the infographic is from http://www.lifeinsurancefinder.com.au/  An Australian comparison site for insurance, therefore looking for hits and sales  :) They have a walk through webpage that talks to :

• Digital Privacy After Death - What Will Happen To Your Online Profile When You're Gone?
• Why You Should Get a Digital Will & A Digital Executor
• Personality Predictors + Artificial Intelligence = Digital Resurrections
• What Will Be Determined to be of Digital Importance & How Will it be Preserved?

It is a good resource and well researched and I am delighted that they touched on issues for business owners, however, all Will’s become public at death so please don’t put your identity and passwords in any document.  Further the site does not address the thorny issue of “shared”  accounts. This could be the family email account that is in the name of the person who died.

<br />Produced by Life Insurance Finder

Image http://trak.in/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/digitalwill.jpg

Emma Gaudern, Partner at BHP Law is advising clients to leave their usernames and passwords in letters or a document that can be held with their Wills to make it easier for executors to deal with all their affairs when they die.

Without passwords, relatives may never be able to access E-mail, internet banking and social networking for their loved ones which means things are left unfinished.

Some clients have started to include these details in their Wills, however it is important to now provide instructions on how to deal with their digital footprint and their online life, the same way they deal with their offline life. “It is important that information such as this is not inserted directly into the Will” says Emma“People forget that after they die their Will becomes a public document and therefore any passwords given in the Will itself will become a matter of public record. What they should do is note these details down separately and make sure they are stored safely with the Will so they can be easily found after a person dies.”

There is also the need for the regulation of online policy, allowing next of kin access to passwords etc to close accounts. Currently the different systems in place are very confusing and the process is taking different lengths of time and requiring a variety of documentation, sometimes it’s more difficult to close online accounts than bank accounts. This can be so easily resolved.

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And don’t forget you are not allowed to log in as someone else ….

Tony - no Apple fan boy, but deeply respectful of a master craftsman  

Adam is the Editor-in-Chief at Mashable http://www.mashable.com/author/adam-ostrow

A topic that keeps coming back and here is another post on it - what happens to your digital footprint when you die ?

Image from Memorial.gov.hk

Grieving families are being left out of pocket because people are forgetting to include passwords to their digital assets in their wills, according to a new study entitled Dying in a Digital Age. Commissioned by Remember a Charity, the research found that 80 per cent of people own digital assets, but only nine per cent have thought about passing them on when they die.

The study, which polled 2,000 people, found that:

– over half of respondents (56 per cent) said they have a digital music collection, with 45 per cent valuing it at over £100 and 10 per cent at over £1,000.

– A third of people own smartphone apps (34 per cent) with 20 per cent saying their collections are worth over £100.

To help people plan how to pass on their digital assets, Remember a Charity has produced a checklist that can be downloaded from its web site.

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If you want to join in the debate on this topic there is http://digitaldeathday.com/ and is run by my NA friend Kaliya you can follow her @identitywoman

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In Hong Kong, your online presence can begin when your earthly presence ends via a new website that enables the bereaved to set up commemorative online profiles of their departed loved ones. In a culture that takes respect for the dead very seriously, many worry about the site displacing traditional forms of mourning. But Hong Kong insists the site "is not meant to replace traditional practices of paying tribute to the deceased”—just to offer access to dead loved ones “anytime and anywhere online, in a warm, personalized yet solemn manner.”

Not a new topic for this blog - previous posts are here http://blog.mydigitalfootprint.com/tag/death

A very good article appeared from the New York Times By ROB WALKER Published: January 5, 2011 using the Photo Illustration by Penelope Umbrico above ‘‘Sunset Portraits, From 8,462,359 Sunset Pictures on Flickr, 12/21/10’’ 

I am not repeating it or doing a summary as it worth spending 15 minutes and reading it.

There are also 83 comments which capture a hugh range of opinion Read All Comments (83) »

Things to adds from me....as so many good point have been made already

Payments - who is responsible for paying for services to keep them alive, you cannot pass on liability.

30% bother to sort wills - 70% don't - the Internet stats are likely to be worse given our attitude to backup

Signing rights that are not aligned to terms and conditions is not a proposition that will work - what you want has to aligned to what you have agreed to.

Digital tech is unstable, difficult to store/ curate and has an on-going cost - do you want to destroy your children's future but keeping all this data, it that your choice?

We need to forget "some-things" - detail is not good.

I have written a number of times on dealing with death and the relationship to your digital footprint

Rule 31 from my 31 new social rules for living in a digital age is about finding someone you trust to ensure that your digital estate can be managed.  Digital Estate Planning appears to be growing   AssetLock.net, Legacy Locker, Deathswitch.com  and

My Webwill  aim to address the issues raised  by enabling online users to securely store online information like logins and passwords to be passed on to relations after death - however you need to tell someone and  Excel does work as a cheap alternative.

On a related but different slant there is E-Tomb which is a solar powered tomb with bluetooth to enable relatives to visit your online profiles and memories after you passed away.

Our granddad’s had 1 profession for life

Our dad’s could have had 1 job for 50 years

We are likely to have had 7 jobs over 50 years

Our kids will need 7 jobs at the same time and will probably not make 50 years

Our grandkids need us to start writing their applications now

Changing name may be only way to escape previous online activity reports Carrie-Ann Skinner of PC Advisor

“Young web users may be need to change their names when they become adults in a bid to distance themselves from content previously posted online about them” Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal: "I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time." "I mean we really have to think about these things as a society. I'm not even talking about the really terrible stuff, terrorism and access to evil things."

Schmidt also told the newspaper the search engine is "trying to figure out what the future of search is".

"I mean that in a positive way. We're still happy to be in search, believe me. But one idea is that more and more searches are done on your behalf without you needing to type."

He says that at present "we know roughly who you are, roughly what you care about, roughly who your friends are". The search engine also knows your location, which according to the WSJ, means if you need milk and there's a place nearby to get milk, Google will remind you to get milk.

"I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next."

However, social media consultant Suw Charman-Anderson told the BBC, the problem was not as great as Schmidt believes. "There's always a lag between the introduction of new technology and the development of a set of social norms around the behaviour that the technology encourages."

She said the idea that everything is stored online is not true and it will be quite some time before that can become true "because of the enormity of the internet".

"As a society, we are just going have to become a bit more forgiving of the follies of youth."

However, many women are now considering keeping their maiden names rather that changing to their husbands to maintain their professional digital reputation, I suppose it all depends what you need to hide !