It is one of those events that only seems obvious once it happens: what becomes of someone’s Facebook or Twitter account after they die? Who manages your “digital afterlife”? The solution might be to move to Oklahoma in the US. Due to a digital twist of fate, residents have the legal right to access the online accounts of deceased relatives. It is one of the few US states that has legislation covering the handling of digital assets after the owner dies.
The law in the vast majority of US states – and in most European countries – has yet to catch up with the 21st-century trend to live and work online and hold assets in digital, rather than physical, form. According to a study conducted in 2011 for McAfee, the information technology security group, consumers across the globe place an average value of $37,438 on the digital assets they own, such as the contents of online photo libraries, personal information and entertainment files. In the US, the figure is almost $55,000.
Viewed alongside the explosion in online social media, it is clear that people all over the world are conducting increasingly large and important aspects of their lives in digital form, which is fine until they die and their family and beneficiaries find the law does not automatically grant access.