Planning Your Digital Legacy
There’s a growing awareness of our digital legacy – the online footprint we leave behind after we die. I still get birthday notifications for a Facebook friend who passed away four years ago. While this isn’t distressing for me, I can imagine it may be for close family and friends. The family of another friend who died last year contacted me to ask if I knew how they could gain access to his Facebook account so they could keep it going as a place to honor his memory. After some googling and asking around I found the answer for them. Things have moved on since then with the announcement last month by Facebook of a “Legacy Contact” – someone who can gain control of your account and memorialize—or delete it in the event you pass away. Whoever you assign your legacy contact will be able to post things that appear at the top of your memorialized Timeline, and can download an archive of your photos, posts, and profile information for safe keeping.
This feature is rolling out over time, so you may not have it yet. When it is rolled out for you, you can follow these steps to activate the feature.
- Go to your account Settings > Security > Legacy Contact.
- Then type in the name of the person you would like to make your Legacy Contact.
- You have the option to send them a message to let them know, but it’s not required. Otherwise, they’ll notified when Facebook becomes aware of your passing.
- Then select whether your Legacy Contact will have Data Archiving permission and whether or not you’d like your account to be deleted.
Have you given any thought to your digital legacy? How would you like your virtual self to live on after you are gone?
My next door neighbor, friend and breast cancer sister passed away last October. “Do you know Wanda M,” still pops up on my Facebook page. Definitely interested in setting up my own digital legacy. Thank you for sharing.
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I thought about this a few years ago and added a friend as an administrator of my blog. I think if I had the option I’d have everything but the blog erased if I died.
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Hi Yvonne, it’s good to know this will be available – it will only take a few minutes to set up and it may save a lot of time and heart ache for loved ones. Victoria, great to hear from you again!
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This is fantastic news. I wasn’t sure how my family would handle my social media presence once I am gone. Your post will help many people, especially those like me with ongoing cancer treatments and their caregivers. xxx
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My husband and I have actually chatted about this. What accounts will exist, what is to be deleted in this kind of circumstance. He has my passwords, interesting that you can set a legacy contact! Good to know.
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What a wonderful idea! I’ve been wanting to read this post for some time, but I’ve been too busy to do much blog reading. I will be doing the legacy contact process. I also have Facebook friends who are deceased, and it’s haunting to receive birthday reminders from them. At the same time, it is reassuring; it’s as if a part of them is still with me.
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Haunting is a good word Beth. I feel the same way when those birthday reminders pop up.. and yet, we don’t want to loose them from our memories either.
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Reblogged this on World Health Innovation Summit.
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