Who will look after our Digital Property?

Was reading about online wills a while back and I have been thinking about the future of our digital property once you stop existing. Now this might seem a little silly when you get on the thought train but as the pace starts catching up, it will be revealed that it’s not as trivial or insignificant as one might think.
What is your Digital Property.
Anything that you own and is stored as digital data on a local or cloud system, could be your digital property. Now, I am not just talking about your bank accounts or financial records — this pretty much includes everything that you left a digital footprint of. Your social media accounts, emails, images, videos, and any other digital subscription services that you are using (Netflix, Evernote, iTunes etc).
What will happen to your Digital Property.
So lets consider a hypothetical scenario where you are, err…dead! Your social media accounts will be inactive for a very long period of time until its recognized as defunct by the AI and archived. Well, not much of an issue there; unless you just made a stupid post that you definitely don’t want to be your final statement! Premium online services are one thing that will require an immediate action to prevent auto-renewals. Imagine Netflix deducting INR650 per month from your savings account when you have no way to access it’s content post demise! Imagine your hard-drive with your art (videos, photos, sketches or stories), sitting there at the risk of being molested! Hope, you got where am I heading with this.
What should we do about it.
There ain’t a definitive textbook I can provide you with. But I am APB-ing a couple of things you could probably consider.
- Use a master password service to save all your passwords in one place. Refer this article for some password services- http://bit.ly/1B4R1kk
- Invest on a premium cloud storage to keep all your important work/art files. Empty those hard drives or use it for generic data storage (movies, music, family photos etc). You could refer this article to learn about some cloud storage services- http://bit.ly/2bRwhZN
- Assign someone you trust, to be your SM caretaker in case of an unfortunate event. Share your master password with that person and direct him/her on what to do with your Digital property. (For Instance: Transfer your work files to your office OR deactivate your SM OR format your computers OR even manage your SM accounts afterwards if you want your memories fresh right on top of the newsfeed). The person must be trustworthy enough, as that they wouldn’t try and use your master password before the “event”.If you want to be really formal on this whole exercise, prepare a Digital Will and send it to the assigned person. Read here about Digital Will http://bit.ly/2uLLrY7
- Now, for the most important part. Act responsibly. Skeletons in your closet will make no one proud.
Peace out.

