Since as I write this we are in the midst of the worst and longest heat wave in recent years, according to we have decided that today it is time to talk about a refreshing, light and very summery topic. So let’s talk about death. And more specifically, of digital legacy.
Death is the only certainty in life. Whatever happens, you can be 100% sure that you are going to die. Old or crushed by a truck, thrown off a cliff in your eagerness to take the best selfie, vaporized by the impact of a nuclear missile on your forehead, devoured by a shark because you have decided to swim on a Caribbean beach to the cry of “Don’t worry, sharks don’t attack humans, that only happens in movies”… You could even collapse irretrievably dead right now from any disease that causes sudden death (and there are many) or from taking one of those medications that in the list of possible adverse effects, which come in that leaflet that you have not read, include death as a “very rare” effect.
The point is that dying, you’re going to die. And if, like me, you have turned 50, you are closer to the moment of your death than your birth.
Afterwards, everyone has their beliefs.
If someone wants to know if there is something after death, you can leave me a comment so that you can privately give me your address and I solemnly promise that, if possible, my ghost will pay you a visit to tell you what is after, that in my case will probably be a detailed description of the torments of hell. I almost prefer that there is nothing, but since I don’t know, I offer you this wonderful possibility for a reasonable price that you will have to pay as soon as possible, lest I listen to it tomorrow and catch you thinking about it. Overall, a thousand euros is not much in exchange for being certain that death is not the end 🙂
Digital Legacy: Index
What is digital legacy
Until not long ago, you died and what was left of you was buried or burned, your loved ones mourned you sincerely, except for the hypocrites who shed a few tears of commitment, and the only tangible memories of you were the photos that ended up faded in the Family album. But since an important part of our life takes place in the digital field, When we die, we not only leave mortal remains, but also digital remains.
The digital legacy is the set of data (texts, images, videos, etc.) in digital format that are posted on the network and that remain after our death.
For example:
- Our profiles in and all the material that we have uploaded to them.
- Blogs, videos and publications, professional or personal, which are posted on different websites.
- The huge amount of data left on servers from different technology providers and are accessible through Google.
- Our electronics.
- The conversation history in messaging services such as WhatsApp or Telegram.
- subscriptions to digital payment services.
- Access data and passwords to different online services.
- Software licenses and other digital assets of value that are in our name.
- Crypto assets: cryptocurrencies, etc.
The amount of data that makes up our digital legacy is immense and can be a real nightmare for our heirs, especially if we have not stated in writing what our wishes are about what should be done with them. In other words, in addition to the classic testament, We must also make a digital will.
In the digital legacy, it is necessary to distinguish between two types of assets:
- Digital assets with purely sentimental value for the heirs: photos, videos, various memories.
- Digital assets that generate an economic return and that may continue to generate it after your death, such as channels on YouTube or on other platforms that have monetization, crypto assets, 100% digital businesses…
In the first case, In your will you should specify before a notary who are the persons designated by you to take charge of managing your digital legacy. But in the second case, the legal issues of inheritance come into play: even if you want to “distribute” those assets or bequeath them to a specific person, you can’t leave out legitimate heirs.
We are talking about money, and everything that has value is regulated in the legislation on inheritances.
How to manage digital legacy
If you want your digital legacy to be managed properly, it is best to have things planned for when the tragic event happens (that is, you die). The first thing you have to decide is what you want to happen with your digital remains, and there you have three options: permanently delete them, download and delete them or keep them online as a memory or tribute.
As we have said before and for obvious reasons, you won’t be able to do this so it is important to think about who will be the people in charge of carrying out your will. It is important to talk to those people and see if they are willing to do it.
My personal advice: do not delegate that responsibility to your partner or someone close to you, because the only thing you are going to do is generate more pain. These people will have enough to manage the mourning for your death without having to spend weeks looking at your photos, your videos and everything you have left behind. Look for people you trust but your death doesn’t hurt so much. Of course, if you can afford it, a lawyer is the perfect person to entrust to you with that task.
Having a will that covers the digital part of your legacy helps a lot, but it will not prevent the headaches and teeth grinding of the designated person when they see the number of services and platforms they have to contact. Fortunately, some of them already have digital legacy management included among their services:
- Facebook was one of the pioneers in this, by allowing each user designates a person in charge of deciding what to do with your personal profile and with the pages you manage. In the case of the personal profile, the person that you have previously designated can choose to delete it or to keep it as a, in which nothing can be published but it does retain access to what has already been published, specifying that it is a person deceased.
- Instagram also offers a similar feature for
- Twitter and YouTube do not allow the conversion of profiles into memorials. but it is possible to close the account of a deceased person, although the procedures can be cumbersome.
- Google also allows you to close the accounts and services of deceased people, although they themselves affirm that “they will make the decision after thoroughly examining the case.” There is a form that allows you to start the process. In certain cases, which are not specified, they can allow the download of data, something especially useful if, for example, the person used .
- does not have an established procedure as such, plus accounts that remain inactive for more than 180 days automatically convert their username to a random name. In this case you will have to resort to general Tiktok support to help you.
- Apple joined the digital legacy management last year. Since 2021, the updates to their operating systems allow you to designate one or more representatives who will be in charge of managing your data and closing your account when you die.
- Microsoft refers to its support services and proposes that, in the event of death, you do not pay the subscriptions to the services of the deceased (so that, in addition to being dead, they will be delinquent and you will have all the ballots for their ghost to haunt you) and their account will disappear in a year. But the thing goes by neighborhoods. While for the EU it refers users to its offices in Ireland and recommends putting the case in the hands of legal counsel,
As you can see, things are complex, so it is best to put all this in the hands of a lawyer and leave an amount reserved in your will for the payment of their services. Nevertheless, many insurance companies already offer the digital legacy management service in their funeral insuranceso if you have insurance of this type, you should review your policy and, if it does not appear, assess the option of including this coverage.
In addition, companies are emerging and the smart will, which not only integrate the conventional will and the digital legacy, but also the living and genetic will, using technologies such as
What is clear is that Dying is not as easy as it used to be. now we leave a digital trail that, no matter how much the right to be forgotten exists, is complex to manage and it requires knowledge and time, two things that your loved ones may not have or may not want to have. That is why it is essential that we plan what to do with our digital legacy.
What if we could make death not the end?
No, I am not referring to the resurrection of the flesh. If you clap it, clap it. But what if your relatives wanted to keep talking to a digital version of you?
This, which already appeared in a very crazy chapter of Black Mirror and until recently was pure science fiction (there is a wonderful novel by Philip K. Dick, locationwhich deals precisely with this) is on its way to becoming a reality. We have already seen how technology allows the dead to be revived in images and give them a voice.like the resurrection of Lola Flores in the Cruzcampo spot, which, as you can see in the following video of the making off of that spot, is still a complex process:
At the same time, already the necessary artificial intelligence technology exists so that a bot can imitate the voice of anyone if you have enough samples of the original voice. You can even clone your own voice for $70. This, which is already a paradise for fake news and a nightmare for espionage services around the world, is only the beginning of what AI has in store for us in the field of funeral services 5.0. There are already a few startups working on it with the idea that you can not only talk, but have a video conference with a dead person who consistently responds to your questions and is able to have a basic conversation with you.
To me personally it seems, in addition to being macabre, something that can have terrible psychological consequences for those who try to hold on to a false memory of a loved one. But in Silicon Valley they have smelled the business opportunity. If then another bot with AI has to be developed to do psychological therapy because you no longer know who is alive and who is dead, then it is developed. It will be for money.
And not just in Silicon Valley. of a chatbot to talk to the dead.
One application of digital resurrection technology that we have already seen, and I am afraid we will see much more of in the future, is the one that allows you to revive dead actors or singers. At the moment it has been done in a few scenes of some films in which the actors had died before or during filming, but it is tremendously tempting for Hollywood (and perhaps for many heirs with few…
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