Having created a virtual identity and almost living an alternative life in digital space it is natural to wonder what would happen once our physical lives come to an end. We think about what will happen to our material belongings but the fate of our digital existence isn’t well understood or controllable. The legal backdrop of most popular social networking sites like Google, Facebook or Twitter usually maintain the companies rights over digital content even if it is publicly shared by its users leaving the equation between legal heirs or loved ones and the digital property of the demised party in question.
In the earlier 2010, Facebook faced a tiff with Stephanie Bemister, sister of deceased British journalist Wiliam Bemister who wanted to remove her brother’s profile from Facebook but couldn’t because the website’s policy is to maintain profiles as memorial pages.
Turning a profile into a memorial requires contacting the company with relevant documentation in order for them to strip out sensitive features like status updates and approving friend requests. Memorialized pages allow only friends already connected to it to post loving comments and share memories.
Other social networking services haven’t dwelled much on the matter. Twitter’s policy allows it to close the account on request but not pass it on to the loved one. Relatives, children and possibly even future biographers will not have access to a deceased person’s private correspondence on the way that traditional paper letters and records can be unearthed today.
It’s important to maintain offline physical records as well. The relevance of this concept might seem minuscule to some right now but an increasing amount of time is being spent sharing personal information online.
Data is permanently archived rather than deleted and storage is moving from personal computers to assorted servers ‘in the cloud’ where our descendents might not be able to access it. The destiny of our digital afterlife is a matter of concern for both individuals as well as the industry in question.
An initiative called Digital Death Day 2010 held in California and London attempted to address this matter by bringing leaders from businesses of social networking, data management and death care to discuss issues pertaining to digital estate planning.