In the age of Instagram and Facebook, online accounts have become a big part of our daily lives. We share personal photos and thoughts with our followers and wait as the “likes” pour in. But what happens to our digital assets when we pass away? Who has control over our accounts? From a legal point of view, digital assets can be passed to designated individuals through an estate plan; however, with the law still evolving, gaining access to digital assets belonging to someone who has passed can be incredibly difficult.

California has recently adopted the “Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act” which states that a digital platform user may designate another person to access their online account on the user’s behalf. The catch however is that this must be done with each online account, making the process tedious and time consuming.

Fortunately, there are other ways to address these obstacles. The following have been the most useful for our clients.  

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Make a list of your digital assets. Store a list of all of your digital platforms, logins, and passwords in a secure location so your loved ones know what you have and how to gain access. Password management apps like LastPass or 1Password can be utilized to help keep track of changes to your passwords over time. With password management apps, you will only need to provide your loved ones with one login and password to give them access to all of your account logins and passwords.

 

Address your digital assets in your estate plan. Another option is to update your estate planning documents to specifically grant your decision makers access to your digital assets. In your estate plan you can customize the extent of your decision makers reach and authority.