Estate Planning For Your Digital Existence

There’s a theme going around that proposes that everyone should have someone assigned to the task of erasing their browser history after they die. These days, that is not far from the truth.

Estate planning should extend well past cars and homes. Most everyone has a personal computer, blog, website, or device that has personal or even sensitive information on it. Take care of these digital assets by including the following steps in your estate plans.

Estate Planning for Digital Assets: Key Steps

• Use a reputable password manager to protect account credentials, and plan how an authorized fiduciary can obtain permitted access. Review each service’s legacy-contact or other online planning tools with your attorney; knowing a password does not by itself establish legal authority to use an account. Sources: RCW 11.120.040; RCW 11.120.150.
• Identify your digital assets. List your digital collections and distinguish content you own from content you use under a license. Check each provider’s terms before assuming books, music, games, subscriptions, or accounts can pass to a beneficiary; access rights and transfer rights may differ. Sources: RCW 11.120.050; RCW 11.120.150(2).
• Decide what you want done with your accounts. Do you want them shut down? Preserved? Handed over to a beneficiary? Your Facebook or Twitter page may not be valuable to someone else, but to the generation whose first words and steps are memorialized in postings, they may be the only link they have left to their childhood once you are gone.
• Back up everything. Keep secure backups of important files you are permitted to copy, and periodically check that you can restore them. It’s especially important to make sure they are backed up on a device owned by you.
• Put it in writing. Whatever you want, work with an estate-planning attorney to work through your plans and get them in writing. A clear estate plan can document your instructions and reduce uncertainty for the people handling your affairs.

Over the past 34 years, the Law Offices of Christopher A. Benson has helped clients with estate planning. Contact our Federal Way office for a free initial consultation to discuss your goals and planning options.