When you die, who has control over your digital assets? Welcome to the digital world. Your assets are no longer limited to traditional assets, such as real property, cars, jewelry, bank accounts, retirement accounts, and life insurance. You more than likely also have social media accounts, blogs, e-books, iCloud accounts, maybe some cryptocurrency, and use online banking and other online services. In short, you have digital assets. So, what happens to your digital assets after you are gone? Do you simply let family and friends know your passwords? Or do you have to do some sort of planning for your digital assets?
Washington's Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, allows a custodian of digital assets to disclose the non-contents or contents of a digital asset to a fiduciary (i.e. Personal Representative, Trustees, Powers of Attorney, etc.) depending on the wishes of the registered user. Certain online services also have their own tools to manage online presence upon the death of the registered user.
Planning for digital assets is still in the early stages. There are no standard procedures when it comes to releasing digital content. License agreements usually prohibit the user from sharing passwords, so you may be in technical violation of the terms of use by simply letting family and friends know your password. However, Washington's Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act provides a process by which individuals, other than the user, can access digital assets. Moreover, online services are becoming more aware of the issue and have taken steps to allow a user to designate who may have access to a user's account and its contents. Thus, planning for digital assets may involve more than simply signing documents. You may need to access your online services' management tools to allow another individual to access your online account after your incapacity or death. Therefore, to make it easy for your family, it would be prudent for you to check with your digital asset custodian (e.g. Facebook, Apple, Amazon, etc.) for their specific management tools, so that it is already in place when you pass away.
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