I talk a lot about digital assets; I personally think that most people have not adequately considered what will become of their online selves on their deaths, and very few service providers have even begun to think about their users dying, let alone what will happen to the service when they do.
I regularly read the Avoid a Claim blog, which has all sorts of useful information on fraud schemes against lawyers (we’re a big target) as well as great practice tips. Recently, they published a long article on what to do with digital assets on the death of the user. I was particularly interested in the section on whether an executor could be punished criminally for inappropriately accessing a deceased user’s online accounts (conclusion: unlikely as being given the passwords is a clear indication that you were given permission and authority to access them). The best thing in the article is towards the end, where there is a checklist on what to do when faced with digital assets.
You can read the entire article (long, but worth it) here.
