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The National
12 hours ago
- The National
Digital legacy: When you die, who's going to tell the internet?
After her husband Alan's death, Gina Seymour found dealing with all his online accounts and virtual paperwork was 'pretty close to a nightmare'. Alan died in 2018, aged 57, after suffering a brain haemorrhage that meant he had been unable to prepare for what would happen to his online life. 'It was a struggle because you don't realise or you forget how many accounts there are,' says Mrs Seymour, an author who works as a school librarian in Long Island, New York. 'Most of them are used every day, like your Gmail, and others only come up once in a while, or once a year, or you don't use [them] as frequently. 'Just when you think you're done, you're actually not. You missed one. It's stressful, to say the least.' Mrs Seymour's experience highlights the issue of 'digital legacy', the way in which almost everyone today has an online presence – and it often cannot simply be forgotten after their death. Many of us have digital accounts for, at least, banking, investments, shopping, tax and messaging. Pass on your password According to password management company NordPass, the average person has 168 passwords, of which 87 are for business-related online accounts. That creates significant challenges for someone dealing with a loved one's digital legacy, especially if that person did not leave behind account details and passwords. 'So many things in our lives have shifted online or have online components. The biggest problem is logistical headaches,' says Dr Jed Brubaker, an associate professor of information science at the University of Colorado Boulder. 'We have so many things that are new, that don't have pre-digital analogues. Maybe your partner was the person who managed your monthly mortgage payment and it went to their email, and all of a sudden you no longer have access to their email. You can think of all of the standard things that now have this additional digital layer.' While these practical issues are important – and very taxing for surviving relatives dealing with them – a person's digital legacy also encompasses things of great sentimental value, notably photographs and videos. Items that were traditionally passed down, such as photo albums, now often exist only in a mobile phone or in the cloud in remote servers, and may be beyond the reach of relatives who do not have access credentials. Dr Brubaker, who manages a free digital legacy clinic run by students, says photos are what bereaved relatives care about the most, although videos are becoming increasingly important. 'In end-of-life plans we're ensuring that people have set them up such that their loved ones can gain access to what is effectively the modern-day scrapbook,' he says. If the bereaved cannot view or download a relative's pictures it can cause what James Norris, founder of the UK-based Digital Legacy Association, describes as a second loss. 'After you have lost someone, you can have a feeling of losing something else from that person,' he says. Major internet companies, such as Apple, Facebok owner Meta and Google, typically have a legacy contact feature, enabling users to designate an individual to deal with their online presence after their death. 'If you have set up plans in advance you have access to download the photos and save them locally,' Mr Norris says. The association recommends that individuals and health and social care providers consider digital assets during end-of-life planning. 'We're based in a hospice provider,' he says. 'Often the conversation we have with patients is: 'Have you got a password on your mobile phone?' They would say yes. 'If they haven't told anyone their password, their digital legacy planning is simply telling their son or partner or grandchild their password so they can access their photos. 'The main thing is for each person to think about each of their online accounts and make suitable plans based on the content and the relationship with loved ones.' Curate your digital legacy People wanting to curate their digital legacy can turn to numerous specialist sites. Among them is Inalife, set up by Nicholas Worley, a British communications professional in Hong Kong. Mr Worley, the father of three young sons, was partly inspired to set up the site, which went live in 2023, by the experience of becoming a parent. 'I thought it would be quite nice if they could have memories of when they were younger – their first swimming lesson, their first steps, all those sorts of things,' he says. Some of his father's family's photos in the UK were destroyed during the Second World War, which has highlighted to Mr Worley the risks of having only a single hard copy of an image. 'It's easier to save things digitally and to have that as a back-up. I wanted to save things across generations, and technology helps you do that,' he says. 'Most people tend not to think about it unless they're older or facing an illness. It's the same with most legacy planning. Giving more attention to it is important.' Users can create sub-profiles for relatives and sub-accounts for children, to whom ownership can be transferred at a particular time, such as when they turn 18. When it comes to public sites such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn, people might want to consider how much of what they have uploaded they would like to remain on view after their death. Some people may prefer accounts to be deleted. 'Everything that we put online, it stays there, unless a company goes bankrupt or the site has a plan in place. There's a lot of our lives out there online,' says Dr Heather Moorefield-Lang, an associate professor of information, library and research sciences at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. 'You have to make your choices as to what you might want people to shut down for you. Are you fine just leaving it out there?' Dr Moorefield-Lang says many people are uncomfortable talking about death, dying and what will happen afterwards, but trying to sort things out after someone has died is no easier. 'Planning and communication takes care of a whole lot of issues later, if your kids and your friends aren't sure what you want,' she says. 'You want to take as much off their shoulders as possible, even if it's just sitting down and talking about it. It costs nothing but time.' After the difficulties of dealing with her late husband's digital legacy, Mrs Seymour has made sure that things will be easier for her children when she dies. She has written details of her online accounts and passwords in a book. 'I know the first rule of internet safety is 'don't write your passwords down',' she says. 'But you have got to write that stuff down. It's in a book, it's all there. The only people who know where it is are my children.'
Fast Company
12-06-2025
- Health
- Fast Company
How to prepare for your digital legacy after death
From family photos in the cloud to email archives and social media accounts, the digital lives of Americans are extensive and growing. According to recent studies by the password management companies NordPass and Dashlane, the average internet user maintains more than 150 online accounts. Individuals produce hundreds of gigabytes of data each year. But few people have plans for what happens to that digital legacy after they die. Unlike physical possessions, online assets often don't pass smoothly from one generation to the next. Loved ones struggle to access important accounts or recover treasured photos. Many families face these challenges while already overwhelmed with grief. Most tech companies haven't kept up with this reality. Fewer than 15% of popular online platforms have clear systems for handling a user's death, and customer support is often limited, according to our new study. As people's 'digital footprints' expand, the lack of planning has become both a practical and emotional burden for families. This is especially true for older adults who may not be aware of the steps required to manage their digital estate. We are an associate professor of information science and a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder. We are researching how to design technologies for people engaged in end-of-life planning for their data. First clinic of its kind We realized there was no organization or comprehensive website to help people navigate the technical, privacy, or practical challenges they were facing. In response, we launched what we believe is a first-of-its-kind solution: the Digital Legacy Clinic. Just as writing a will helps manage physical possessions after death, planning your digital legacy ensures that your online life is handled according to your wishes. Our clinic opened in late 2024. The free clinic offers support both to people planning for the end of their digital lives and to those managing the digital estates of loved ones who have died. Led by students and housed in the University of Colorado Boulder's information science department, the clinic operates much like a pro bono law clinic. Community members in the Denver and Boulder areas, as well as from across the country, can contact the clinic for help. First, a person interested in getting support fills out a simple form. Then, a member of the clinic will send a follow-up email to clarify and offer preliminary advice. Since every case is different, often clinic workers will then meet via Zoom with a client to create a personalized plan for them and their family. How the clinic helps The clinic offers guidance on a wide range of digital estate concerns, including setting up digital legacy tools such as trusted contacts on Google and Apple or legacy contacts on Facebook —someone you choose to manage your main profile after you've died. People can also get guidance on how to memorialize or delete social media or other online accounts after a loved one has died. For example, Facebook allows you to either memorialize an account or request its removal. To memorialize it, you'll need to submit a form with the person's name; date of death; proof of passing, such as an obituary; and verify your relationship to the deceased. Including these steps can help your loved ones manage a digital legacy with clarity and care. The clinic also helps people recover and preserve digital assets. That includes photos, videos, emails, and other important documents, such as legal documents stored on a Google Drive. For those who are planning for after they die, the clinic can guide them in creating a digital estate plan. That plan might include inventorying online accounts, documenting login credentials, and leaving instructions for account closure, or determining steps to email the documents to your lawyer. Students supporting their community The ongoing work of the clinic is run entirely by undergraduate and graduate students, who build and maintain the clinic's website, manage the client intake process, and research solutions tailored to each case. For the students, it's a hands-on learning opportunity that connects academic work to real-world needs. The experience is also professionally valuable. Students learn how to communicate complex tech topics with empathy, navigate privacy laws, and manage sensitive data responsibly. A resource for older adults While the Digital Legacy Clinic is available to people across the country, its location in Boulder makes it especially accessible to older adults in the Boulder and Denver areas who may prefer or benefit from in-person support. For older adults, the clinic can play a crucial role in helping them organize their digital lives while they're still alive. This can reduce confusion for loved ones later and even help prevent issues such as identity theft or account misuse. Many older adults now maintain extensive online presences, but they may not have the tools or knowledge to ensure their accounts are secure and accessible to people they trust.
Reuters
04-06-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Britain's tax body detects unauthorised access to some online accounts
LONDON, June 4 (Reuters) - Britain's tax office (HMRC) said on Wednesday that its security systems had detected unauthorised access to some customers' online accounts in an attempt to claim money. "This was an attempt to claim money from HMRC, not an attempt to take any money from you," His Majesty's Revenue and Customs said in a notice posted on the government website. HMRC said it had written to affected customers and locked down their accounts, deleted log in details and removed any incorrect information from tax records. It said affected taxpayers did not need to take any action.
Forbes
01-06-2025
- General
- Forbes
How To Make A Good Password – 4 Strong Password Examples
A good password is one that's impossible to guess. One of the simplest ways for a hacker to gain control of your online accounts is by getting hold of your password. Sometimes, they do this through brute force attacks — automatically checking millions of random permutations — or by working through words in the dictionary. Sometimes, they'll use credential stuffing, exploiting the fact that many people reuse passwords across different sites. We're constantly told that it's important to always use really strong passwords — but what does this mean in practice? We look at how to create a strong password and help keep your online accounts safe from attack. A good password is, essentially, one that it's impossible or very difficult for an attacker to guess. That means avoiding anything obvious — 'password' or '123456' for example, both of which are surprisingly frequently used. Generally speaking, the longer a password is, the better, and it should include a combination of upper-case letters, lower-case letters, numbers and symbols. While a combination of real words and other symbol is fine, using the name of your child or your favorite sports team is a really bad idea. And you should make sure that each password you use is unique — never reuse a password, or even a very similar one — across more than one site. If you're coming up with a password yourself, you could, of course, simply bash your keyboard at random and use whatever comes out — and that's actually not a bad way of doing it. You should make sure that whatever you come up with is reasonably long and complex. Some cyber experts recommend using a passphrase — several words strung together — as a starting point; although anything like a song lyric or famous quotation is a really bad idea. It's also less clever than you might think to use special characters in place of normal letters — pa$$w0rd', or the like — as hackers are on to that one. Finally, there are a number of password generators online that will come up with one for you that should fulfill all the criteria for a good password. Using a random string of upper- and lower-case letters, symbols and numbers should usually generate a very strong password. The longer it is the better, with security experts recommending that it should have at least 14 characters. Obviously, this won't exactly be easy to remember — but there are dozens of free password manager services online that you can use to do the job for you. To create a password that's secure but a little easier to remember, many security agencies, including the U.S.'s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, suggest the use of a passphrase. One way to do this is to think of three random words and string them together — needless to say, they should be random, rather than a part of a well-known phrase or something based on personal information, such as 'MyCatTibbles', for example. Perhaps the simplest solution for coming up with a really strong password is to use a password generator, which does all the hard work for you. Password generators use random number generators to create strong, random passwords with no patterns or predictable sequences. Most allow you to customize your passwords, and will store them securely — so that the only one you'll have to remember is the one for the password manager itself. When it comes to creating a strong password, the longer it is, the better. It's usually recommended that it should have at least 14 characters. A strong password will usually contain a mixture of upper- and lower-case letters, numbers and symbols, although it's also possible to create a good one by stringing together a series of unrelated words. There's no need to tailor a password to a particular site, although some will require you, for example, to use a minimum number of characters or to include numbers or symbols. One hard-and-fast rule is that you should never reuse the same or very similar passwords on more than one site — and don't use any of the examples given below, just in case hackers are reading this article too. This password — 'qo34inhj#';[ladfbyulB' — was produced by hitting the keyboard randomly, and includes a mixture of letters and other characters. It's a good length, contains no personal information, and is obviously impossible to guess. It does have one flaw, which is the lack of an upper-case letter — adding a couple in would make it even stronger. A passphrase consisting of several real words is an awful lot easer to remember than a randomly-generated password, making it an attractive option. However, you shouldn't be tempted to use related words or a quotation, such as 'BigBrownDog' or 'ShallICompareThee', as this could potentially be guessable. Instead, use completely unrelated words, such as 'BillPlantKitchenEngine'. A passphrase will be stronger if it, too, contains numbers or special symbols: 'Bill&PlantKitchenEngine1', for example. An ideal password is one that you can remember, but others can't guess, and one possibility is to create one based on a string of characters that means something to you, but nothing to anyone else. You could, for example, start with the sentence 'My new house is in San Francisco and is painted white with blue trim'; then take the last letter of each word to come up with 'ywesnnodsdehem'. This does have the failing that it lacks upper-case letters or symbols, but could easily be improved by adding a couple in. Some sites allow you to use alternative methods to verify your identity and access your account. This may be facial recognition, a fingerprint or a passkey, which will be sent to you by text or email and which you then use to sign in. All these methods are more secure than passwords — and in the case of biometric identification, are also quicker to use and a good deal less hassle. Bottom Line We're constantly told about the importance of using a strong, unique password — but it's not necessarily clear how to do that. A good password is one that's impossible to guess, so you should avoid anything obvious or based on findable information, like your children's names. Go for something long, with a mixture of letters and symbols instead. How Often Should You Change Your Password? However strong your passwords are, it's a good idea to change them regularly — especially passwords for sensitive accounts like your bank or other financial services. Many experts recommend doing this every three months or so. You should also change all your passwords if you've been hacked, or if a service you use has experienced a data breach. Some security experts recommend changing passwords if you've used public wifi too. It's worth noting that, while some organizations demand that staff change their passwords regularly, this is considered a bad idea by cyber security authorities, as the hassle of doing it means that people are more likely to reuse passwords or even write them down. How Long Should A Password Be? Many sites impose a minimum length for a password, often eight characters, as the longer a password, the more secure it is. Security firms have different recommendations, but generally speaking suggest a minimum character count of between 12 and 20. There's no maximum — apart from the length of time you're prepared to spend typing — but anything longer than 30 or 40 characters is probably overkill. Some password generators create passwords of more than 100 characters, but as password managers store these for you, there's no extra hassle involved. Should You Be Password Recycling? While it's tempting to reuse your passwords from one account to another, there are very good reasons for using a radically different password for all of your online accounts. When criminals get hold of one of your passwords they will often use a technique called credential stuffing to try the same one against all your other accounts and potentially gain access. And, note, it's not enough to just change a password slightly — if you're using Tibbles123 on one account, they'll check Tibbles321, and other variations, too.
