{"id":2405,"date":"2016-10-12T15:21:25","date_gmt":"2016-10-12T19:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/?p=2405"},"modified":"2019-12-23T17:59:41","modified_gmt":"2019-12-23T22:59:41","slug":"dealing-digital-assets-life-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/dealing-digital-assets-life-death.html","title":{"rendered":"Dealing With Digital Assets During Life and After Death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We live in a digital age. The advent of the personal computer, the rise of social media, online access to financial accounts and commerce, and the development of increasingly efficient programs and applications affording easy access to our finances, shopping, entertainment activities, and communications, have helped to create a world in which each of us likely spends a portion of most days online. The result is often a trove of digital assets that we have created, communicated, and stored. Some of these assets may have substantial inherent financial value (for example, frequent flyer miles and other award programs), some may have value because they are the means of accessing other assets (e.g., your bank account user name and password), and some may have sentimental value (such as your e-mail account holding personal correspondence).<\/p>\n<p>Digital assets can present a challenge for fiduciaries. Items that 30 years ago would have had a physical existence, such as bank account statements, may now only exist in the digital realm. Because digital assets are intangible, identifying them and gaining access to them on behalf of their owners can be time-consuming and often, because this is a relatively new asset class and the rules governing it are still evolving, unsuccessful. Through planning, it is possible for individuals to take steps to protect what matters in their digital lives.<\/p>\n<p>Most service providers include their policies regarding deceased users\u2019 accounts in the terms of service provided when a user establishes the account, including what happens when the account owner dies. However, few people in practice pay attention to the provisions to which they are agreeing. It is sometimes the case that a service provider\u2019s terms of service will cause all access to terminate as a result of an account owner\u2019s death. Service providers are beginning to address the probability that many users would want someone to have access to the content the user has created or stored. For example, Google has an \u201cInactive Account Manager\u201d function that allows users to determine what happens to the digital assets stored on Google sites after a period of inactivity. The user can request that Google either notify a specified individual and share information with that person, or can request that Google delete an account and its contents.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/dealing-digital-assets-life-death.html\"  title=\"Continue Reading Dealing With Digital Assets During Life and After Death\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We live in a digital age. The advent of the personal computer, the rise of social media, online access to financial accounts and commerce, and the development of increasingly efficient programs and applications affording easy access to our finances, shopping, entertainment activities, and communications, have helped to create a world in which each of us [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[293,65,343],"tags":[],"coauthors":[295],"class_list":["post-2405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-robbins","category-insights","category-wills-trusts-estates-insights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Dealing With Digital Assets During Life and After Death &#8212; October 12, 2016 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We live in a digital age. The advent of the personal computer, the rise of social media, online access to financial accounts and commerce, and the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/dealing-digital-assets-life-death.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dealing With Digital Assets During Life and After Death &#8212; October 12, 2016 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We live in a digital age. The advent of the personal computer, the rise of social media, online access to financial accounts and commerce, and the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/dealing-digital-assets-life-death.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-10-12T19:21:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-12-23T22:59:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Anne Marie Robbins\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Anne Marie Robbins\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dealing With Digital Assets During Life and After Death &#8212; October 12, 2016 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","description":"We live in a digital age. The advent of the personal computer, the rise of social media, online access to financial accounts and commerce, and the","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/dealing-digital-assets-life-death.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Dealing With Digital Assets During Life and After Death &#8212; October 12, 2016 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","og_description":"We live in a digital age. The advent of the personal computer, the rise of social media, online access to financial accounts and commerce, and the","og_url":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/dealing-digital-assets-life-death.html","og_site_name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. 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