Have you ever asked yourself what will happen to your Digital Legacy after you die? Digital Assets are a vital part of our Digital Legacy and as our digital assets expand, so does the need to protect them.
Your Digital Assets are spread across different media platforms like email, social media accounts, and online repositories like cloud drives, and online storage, etc. These assets together form your Digital Legacy. And, after your death, your Digital Legacy is unprotected and vulnerable to data leaks and identity theft.This is why you need to have a plan for your Digital Legacy. It helps in securing your online data while giving your family the peace of mind they need at times of loss and chaos. But, the question is how to make a plan for securing your Digital Legacy.
Don’t worry it’s fairly simple. Here are the steps to safeguard your Digital Legacy.
6 steps to Safeguard Digital Legacy
1. Listing
First and foremost, you need to analyze the scope of Digital Legacy Planning. This might be the precarious part. Most of us have a diverse range of online accounts and some of which we’ve forgotten about.
So, we recommend going through your computer, looking at the bookmarks, browsing history, and checking applications that are downloaded on your computer and smartphones.
After recalling and going through everything, you can start making a list of all the Digital Assets you want to include in your Digital Legacy
2. Decide What Happens To Your Account In Your Absence
Decide whether you want to close your online accounts, cancel subscriptions (Amazon, Netflix, etc.), or memorialize them.
However, if you decide to cancel or close accounts make sure you have someone to consolidate your photos into other storage services before your account is canceled.
3. Analyze Digital Legacy Policies
Before you lay out your Digital Legacy, you need to go over the Digital Legacy policies of various sites. For instance, Apple Legacy allows users to assign a contact who can access their files after they are gone. Similarly, Facebook allows family members to memorialize the account of their loved ones after their demise.
However, Amazon’s consumer service will not allow you to pass on any content including your e-books and music. Thus, researching these policies will help you create instructions on how you want your accounts to be handled.
4. Choose Your Digital Executor
A Digital Executor is the person who makes sure your digital legacy is taken care of, as per your wishes. You can either appoint your Estate Plan’s executor as your Digital Executor for your Digital Estates or choose a tech-savvy individual who knows their way through social media and other online accounts.
The role of a Digital Executor comes with great responsibilities. Thus, be certain it is someone you trust.
5. Legalize Your Digital Legacy
It’s important to legitimize your Digital Legacy by making it legal and secure. Some people even include it in their existing Will. However, Will becomes public knowledge after you pass away, which can be an issue for security reasons. You do not want your passwords to go public along with the Will.
The other problem with including your Digital Legacy in your Will is you will have to keep updating it after every password change. Thus, it’s best to create a Digital Estate Plan. It can keep up with password changes without making your information public.
6. Store and Share Memories with Your Loved Ones
There are so many essential aspects of creating a Digital Legacy Plan but storing and sharing them with your loved ones tops the list.
Clocr’s Time Capsule is an easy solution to store and share your Digital Legacy. Apart from storing photos and videos, you can also include personalized messages for your loved ones in Clocr’s Time Capsule.
To sum up, the digital age has provided us with a lot of opportunities, but it has also made us more vulnerable to frauds, scams, and identity theft. This is why you don’t want to leave your digital assets unattended after your death. Thus it is best that you get prepared for Securing your Digital Legacy.
