Big Tech offers little help when loved ones die

On Dec. 1, Google began to delete accounts that had been inactive for two years. This change in practice seeks to address serious security issues, including scammers using old accounts to impersonate legitimate users.

However, the change also has some unexpected consequences for one group of people who aren’t often considered in tech policy, because they aren’t really users anymore: the dearly departed.

My dad died in the summer of 2020. He was in his 50s and didn’t have a recent will. It took more than two years for my brother and I to get all his accounts in order. One of the biggest challenges in resolving his estate was not the complexity of navigating pandemic-era bureaucracy, but rather dealing with digital services and digital authentication.

Many social media companies and streaming services wanted us to share highly personal information in insecure ways. Representatives asked us to email death and birth certificates, photocopy other sensitive personal information and upload it all through unencrypted links. We declined to do that, which meant leaving open things like his Facebook and Gmail accounts — a digital life in death.

Our dad was neither a fan of bureaucracy nor one to overshare, so it’s probably what he would have wanted. But if two grown adult children with careers in technology struggled to deal with a loved one’s digital legacy, what hope is there for others not so prepared?  

Beyond the privacy concerns, many platforms were just not user-friendly in closing accounts.

For example, we could not directly regain access to verify and pay bills on my father’s Verizon account without a password or verification via his email. Verizon offers an option for relatives of a deceased account holder to manage their account by transferring it to a Verizon account in the relative’s name — which would have resolved the issue — but neither I nor my brother were told about it. A customer service representative told us we were better off allowing the bill to go unpaid for enough months that they would shut down the account, and then send a check before it went to a collection agency.

Of course, scams are a serious problem, and closing inactive accounts after a while is logical, but the arbitrary nature of Google’s two-year period poses a problem given that probate might extend beyond that time in many states, and the email account might be necessary to authenticate or communicate about other accounts.

Many people looked at Google’s change and likely didn’t consider it a big deal. After all, others already do similar things. For example, Yahoo deactivates accounts after only 12 months. That’s true, but just because more companies are doing it, doesn’t make it right.

What these companies need to do is offer a trustworthy and secure way for people to close these accounts on an appropriate timeline. Emailing death and birth certificates or marriage licenses is not secure. While the account may not be used according to the metrics that might indicate activity from the companies’ perspective, probate or other estate restrictions might make access to these accounts necessary.

Until Big Tech decides to change, it is up to us to act.

The first step you should take is to ensure that your digital accounts are covered in your will. Even though nearly everyone uses online accounts, estimates are that only around 7 percent of people have addressed their digital assets in their wills.

If you serve as power of attorney for a loved one, ask them to consider their end-of-life wishes regarding their online accounts. While it is possible to simply designate authority to close or manage accounts after your death, it is also important that those closest to you know what your life online entails.

What social media platforms are you on? How many email accounts do you have? Are you active on niche platforms related to your hobbies? I learned that my father was an active Craigslist user — an extension of his love for vintage motorcycles — when I could no longer ask him about it.

Make sure your family knows about your online legacy and what you want to happen with it. You can’t spare them the heartache of loss, but you can save them the headache of dealing with your digital legacy.

Madelyn Sanfilippo is an assistant professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and book series editor for Cambridge Studies on Governing Knowledge Commons. She is a public voices fellow of The OpEd Project.