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Your estate planning is important. But remember, you have a book a password somewhere and all this that do your loved ones know where that is, because one day you won't be here. And they're gonna have to deal with all this. So basically, in your daily life, over the past decade or two, you've probably visited many websites, you might have some social media accounts with Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo, you might have email addresses, you know, multiples, and each one of these entities has different processes for resolving the account in the case of a death. So what I want to do is cover some of those steps to make sure you're prepared and when the time comes. So there's no early time to start planning for this, just like there's no early time to start planning your will for your estate and your kids or grandkids or whatever. So what I want to do is cover some of the most popular entities, and then I'll tell you what their policies are, because some of them might surprise you. So
First, Facebook is a big one. So Facebook, basically, you have to go to Security Settings on your Facebook page. And you'll see an option that says legacy contact. So legacy contact is a person, maybe a spouse, or a brother or sister, you know, a sibling, that will be able to manage your account, if you pass away. So let's say I disappear one day, I get hit by a train and I'm gone, my wife can say, if she's the legacy contact, she can provide a final message, you know, Jeff has gone thanks for your wishes or whatever, provide information about the memorial, the funeral. And then she would also be able to download all my posts and videos. So the difference is Facebook doesn't allow them to log in or delete your account. But they can give those final messages to your friends and family so that you know what happened. Okay, so Facebook, really the accounts just kind of hang on there forever. But you can give that final goodbye on behalf of your loved one if they make you a legacy contact. But then, basically, your Facebook account just freezes.
So that's Facebook's policy. Okay? Now, Google is another big entity. So you might sign into Google, it's always good to use Google anonymously. But if you do have a Gmail account, basically, Google you can specify in settings and advanced what's called a timeout period. So what that saying is that if you haven't logged in, in a certain amount of time, six months or a year, Google may send you an email and text that says, Hey, are you still with us, you know, because you haven't logged in in a while. And then if you can also set up trusted contacts in Google. So there's something does happen to you, they can, if you do that in advance, they can access your Google account and close it. So anybody that you give access to your Google account, as far as a trusted contact, they call it, they're able to shut down your Google account after you pass. Okay, so that's a little different from Facebook, Facebook, just kind of freezes it, and it's there forever. But Google, let your contact, remove it. So then you can get rid of all your Google data.
Charlie McDermott
And when you when you say the Facebook freezes that account that page, does that mean, your legacy person couldn't post anymore or or
Jeff Bohr
the legacy person could always post, okay, but it's kind of a third party thing because they don't actually log into your account. They just have access to the page where they can still post things after you're gone. Okay? They cannot do anything except download prior posts, they cannot edit them, they cannot remove them. So basically, if you pass on December 31, and last thing you did was a New Year's Eve party and you put some pictures up those will be there indefinitely, forever. And then when you You get the, when someone passes, they will, the
Transcription:Planning Your Digital Afterlife
Charlie McDermott 0:00
It's time for the Naples Mac Help podcast with Apple certified support professional. Jeff Bohr.
Welcome back in this there's Charlie McDermott here with the one and only Jeff for Jeff, how you doing?
Jeff Bohr 0:15
Wonderful today, Charlie, thank you so much.
Charlie McDermott 0:18
And you had a busy, busy weekend. And it's been a busy season here for you, hasn't it?
Jeff Bohr 0:24
Yeah, so far, so good. I don't mind because business is business. And I'm helping people enjoy technology. So that's great.
Charlie McDermott 0:31
Love it. Love it. Well, you have quite a topic today planning your digital afterlife, I can't wait to just sit back and listen. And again, take notes. So I'm going to turn it over, as I always do to the expert, Jeff, take it away.
Jeff Bohr 0:47
Well, thank you, Charlie. So as we all know, you know, you probably have a well drawn up to distribute or process property and assets in case of, you know, your eventual demise. But do you have a plan for your digital assets and how they will be managed,
Charlie McDermott 1:02
and I'm shaking, my head knows for our listeners,
exam, everyone else's to
Jeff Bohr 1:08
your estate planning is important. But remember, you have a book a password somewhere and all this that do your loved ones know where that is, because one day you won't be here. And they're gonna have to deal with all this. So basically, in your daily life, over the past decade or two, you've probably visited many websites, you might have some social media accounts with Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo, you might have email addresses, you know, multiples, and each one of these entities has different processes for resolving the account in the case of a death. So what I want to do is cover some of those steps to make sure you're prepared and when the time comes. So there's no early time to start planning for this, just like there's no early time to start planning your will for your estate and your kids or grandkids or whatever. So what I want to do is cover some of the most popular entities, and then I'll tell you what their policies are, because some of them might surprise you. So
okay, so first, Facebook is a big one. So Facebook, basically, you have to go to Security Settings on your Facebook page. And you'll see an option that says legacy contact. So legacy contact is a person, maybe a spouse, or a brother or sister, you know, a sibling, that will be able to manage your account, if you pass away. So let's say I disappear one day, I get hit by a train and I'm gone, my wife can say, if she's the legacy contact, she can provide a final message, you know, Jeff has gone thanks for your wishes or whatever, provide information about the memorial, the funeral. And then she would also be able to download all my posts and videos. So the difference is Facebook doesn't allow them to log in or delete your account. But they can give those final messages to your friends and family so that you know what happened. Okay, so Facebook, really the accounts just kind of hang on there forever. But you can give that final goodbye on behalf of your loved one if they make you a legacy contact. But then, basically, your Facebook account just freezes.
So that's Facebook's policy. Okay? Now, Google is another big entity. So you might sign into Google, it's always good to use Google anonymously. But if you do have a Gmail account, basically, Google you can specify in settings and advanced what's called a timeout period. So what that saying is that if you haven't logged in, in a certain amount of time, six months or a year, Google may send you an email and text that says, Hey, are you still with us, you know, because you haven't logged in in a while. And then if
you can also set up trusted contacts in Google. So there's something does happen to you, they can, if you do that in advance, they can access your Google account and close it. So anybody that you give access to your Google account, as far as a trusted contact, they call it, they're able to shut down your Google account after you pass. Okay, so that's a little different from Facebook, Facebook, just kind of freezes it, and it's there forever. But Google, let your contact, remove it. So then you can get rid of all your Google data.
Charlie McDermott 4:19
And when you when you say the Facebook freezes that account that page, does that mean, your legacy person couldn't post anymore or or
Jeff Bohr 4:30
the legacy person could always post, okay, but it's kind of a third party thing because they don't actually log into your account. They just have access to the page where they can still post things after you're gone. Okay? They cannot do anything except download prior posts, they cannot edit them, they cannot remove them. So basically, if you pass on December 31, and last thing you did was a New Year's Eve party and you put some pictures up those will be there indefinitely, forever. And then when you You get the, when someone passes, they will, they will just hold that, you know, it freezes, basically. So those pictures are there forever from that New Year's Eve, but there might be posts that the legacy contact makes, oh, we're sorry, we lost them on New Year's Eve, you know, now it's January the services on the 15th, or whatever. So, okay, kind of freezes in time with Facebook with Google, you can get rid of it. Now, Twitter, if you have a Twitter account, they have a form that you can fill out after someone passes to deactivate their account. But there's no advance function like Facebook and Google have to plan for this. So basically, if I pass away, my wife could fill out a form, send in a copy of my death certificate to Twitter, and then they will shut down the account. Okay, that's kind of cut and dry, just they just close it down. Yahoo. Basically, when if someone passes away, and you have a Yahoo account, the survivors have to send in a letter with a copy of a birth certificate, and then Yahoo just shuts the thing down. They delete all content, but they don't give you access to it. Whereas Facebook will let you download your data, Google will let you download your data. Twitter, you could copy that and paste it somewhere, but they don't really let you download it. But Yahoo really just kind of cuts it off. So basically, and they will not provide passwords or any data about the account, they'll just basically shut it down cold turkey mile. Wow, as you already seen, each of these entities has a different process. So it's not just easy to leave your passwords, you kind of have to plan for this stuff. Because just a book of passwords isn't going to help anyone in many of these cases. Interesting. Now, another big social media network is LinkedIn. So basically, in LinkedIn, they're a little more user friendly than most because anyone on LinkedIn can send a copy of an obituary in and LinkedIn will deactivate the account. So it could be a co worker, be a friend, it doesn't have to be a specified family member, or even someone that knows you that well. So someone knows that you passed, and they send up, there's a form on LinkedIn webpage where you can submit an obituary, and then LinkedIn will remove the account when they get that information, but it doesn't have to be a family member. So that's kind of a little unique thing. Now, Netflix is a little different, because with Netflix, you know, so many people, they're cracking down on this now, because so many people have been sharing passwords for so long. So you might be using your father's password or something. But if he passes away, what do you do? So basically, Netflix, you have to have the person's name and password. And then you simply go in to their settings, and you say cancel account. So Netflix doesn't really help you with that. But as long as if you've been using your parents Netflix account and they pass away for some reason, then you've already got the password. So you're able to do this. So you can go in and just cancel the account. That's pretty cut and dry. Okay, so now one of the big ones that has a little controversial prop. Probably, and this is the company I deal with all the time is apple. So with Apple, you know you have an Apple ID, you might subscribe to Apple Music. And in Apple's fine print, when you when you always hit agree to the terms and conditions, you know that no one ever reads, because it's 40 pages long. Basically, they're saying that you're agreeing that the account is non transferable, and that any rights to your Apple ID or content within your account terminate upon your death. So basically, if you have Apple music that you didn't buy, but you're kind of leasing through their stuff, if you have Apple Music, music that you bought, if you have movies that you bought, technically, Apple owns that, when you go, Oh my goodness, it's kind of scary. But to be honest with you, I've never heard of it happening like that. But in the fine print, they're saying, Hey, if you bought Gone With the Wind, and you own it, but you bought it from Apple, and you die, well, that copy Gone with the wind goes back to Apple. So it's kind of one of these. It's in the print. I've never heard of it happening, but that's the reality of what they could do. Yeah. So just be cautious that you know your own CDs and stuff. You still own it. But anything that you purchased or rented from Apple will disappear. It could disappear. Yeah, on your demise, but I've never seen it happen, but just be prepared. It sounds scary. But
Charlie McDermott 9:35
guess when it gets big enough where Apple's losing money all of a sudden, yeah,
Jeff Bohr 9:39
you can make sure the important thing is if you're if your loved ones know your Apple ID and password, yeah, then you don't even have to tell apple that they passed away. Yeah. So that would be one way out of it. Just make sure you leave your password. And if you have a phone or something make sure they know the code to that because of two factor authentication where they Ready to sign in, and it sends a code. So make sure you have all your bases covered. And the apple technicality should not ever be
Charlie McDermott 10:07
here at the in the at the attorney's office office, you know, and and for Jeff, I leave my apple library of all my digital movies and music and you'll be jumping in and you're like, oh, man,
Jeff Bohr 10:21
right? Yeah. And then you get there and it's empty. So yeah, just be careful with that. You know, the access is there, as long as you can sign into the account, basically, no other passwords and sites. Now remember, you have banking, you might have a Skype account, you have a, you know, a Schwab account, all these places that you need to get into, if you're not here one day, is your next of kin, your loved one or whatever going to be able to access these accounts and pay bills. So these are the things that you have to plan for, that aren't really something that the attorney talks about, I asked my own attorney who drew up my will. Do you ever ask people about passwords or stuff like that when you're making their wills? And he said, No. I said, well, that can be a good side business for you. Because this is a thing that you have to deal with now that we didn't have to deal with 15 or 20 years ago, right? It's kind of new, you know, and you've got all these passwords. And sometimes they're in books, and sometimes they're in post it notes. So what I advise everyone to do is make sure that you have a good method of managing your passwords and logins for these different entities. Because in case you're not here, one day, someone is going to need to wrap those accounts up and such and will they have access to them. So not only do you need to have a good system for passwords, I mean, I personally use a software program called one password. And the theory behind that is if you can remember one password, it will remember all your stuff. So basically, that's a good solution. You know, another solution is if you have a notebook filled with this stuff, but just make sure someone else in your family knows about it. You know, if it's in a safe and only you know, the combination, and you're not here one day, well, nobody's going to be able to get to it. And these accounts are going to cause some problems. So just be aware that you know, you know, you never can predict what's going to happen in the future, but you can be prepared for it. So along with your house and your assets and stuff, you need to plan for these digital assets, as well. Because as you saw already, a lot of these companies have different terms and conditions for what happens if you pass, and they're not all on the same page. So if you're using these services, pay attention to what the different ones require, so that you're prepared, and you make it a little easier on your loved ones when you do decide to go or even when you don't decide to go. So
Charlie McDermott 12:42
that's I mean, it's getting tougher and tougher to kick the bucket anymore. I mean, it's just easier to keep living than to pass away and have to deal with all this.
Jeff Bohr 12:51
Yeah, well, the good thing is you don't have to deal with it. But you want to make it easy for the people that do so please get this in order for the people you care about, if not yourself.
Charlie McDermott 13:01
Yeah. Wow. No idea. I'm sure your listeners chef have just like put this on their radar, because it many of us it wasn't even a thought but it made me so as you bring it up, it's like, yeah,
Jeff Bohr 13:15
you think about and I get three or four calls a year where someone calls me and their spouse has passed away. And they were the one that kept all the passwords. And they're asking me, do you know what this was? Do you know how to get into his computer and I don't remember all this stuff. You know, there are certain ways you can get around some of these things. But it becomes very tedious. And discouraging to be in that situation where you have to get this stuff when you've got other things on your mind and other things on your plate. So if you can plan for this, it will take a lot of the stress off an already stressful time.
Charlie McDermott 13:48
Well, once again, Jeff, so so helpful, really appreciate you spending time during your busy season to go through this. And we look forward to learning more than next episode, as we always do.
Jeff Bohr 14:00
We're very dry. It's great and the letting people understand technology and helping them you know, deal with it on a daily basis. So that's what I do.
Charlie McDermott 14:07
Awesome. All right. Well, we'll see in the next episode.
Jeff Bohr 14:09
Thank you have a great day