Ask HN: What happens to your Facebook account when you die?

Re:Ask HN: What happens to your Facebook account when you die? by trickjarrett on Monday July 13, 2009 @11:16AM (#701851)

Digital assets after death are still handled extremely poorly. In most cases your information on the digital servers is your property, so you should be able to direct your executor / executrix to notify the necessary sites and have them act accordingly. However the action is not going to be speedy.

My option is to save all my necessary login informations, encrypt it, and leave in my will for the executor/trix to handle and act out my instructions.

This topic is one I've pondered as a basis for a startup but I have yet to find a really significant business plan surrounding it.

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Re:Ask HN: What happens to your Facebook account when you die? by AdilD on Monday July 13, 2009 @01:04PM (#702054)

I agree that digital assets are barely a consideration for people especially in relation to a topic like this. The idea of creating some sort of standard way and turning it into a business is an intriguing one - why couldn't you just have something akin to a password keeper (like a virtual security box) that you must provide a person to pass onto in the event that you pass away?

I'd probably pay a small amount for that, assuming that the security features were incredible.

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Re:Ask HN: What happens to your Facebook account when you die? by trickjarrett on Monday July 13, 2009 @01:27PM (#702100)

Well if they just want a password keeper than they can use a desktop password tracker and share the master key with the necessary people. What I'm talking about is more akin to being an online executor rather than just a password storage location.

Some of the issues I've considered:

1) Giving a password to someone is a major security hole. They could lose it, it could be stolen, etc. This is going to be a key to your entire (ideally) online presence. And for people with online wealth this poses a significant issue.

2) This sort of system requires updating and ideally you'd want to make it as simple as possible.

3) What if not all of your digital assets are online website accounts. What about MMOs? Or FTPs etc. Online banking.

4) The digital information security as you mentioned will of course be a large priority.

5) What if a client doesn't have someone to give their information to? Then it would / could fall on us to be aware of his death. I haven't found a good way to do this other than a rather morbid dead-man switch. Call them at some frequency just to check up on them...

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