Death does not erase your digital footprint. Online bank accounts, social media profiles, cryptocurrency wallets, subscriptions, and messaging services all raise complex legal questions for your heirs. Here is what the law says about digital succession and how to prepare.

The Right to Digital Death

Several countries have enacted legislation giving users control over what happens to their data after death. France's 2016 Digital Republic Act was one of the first laws to formally establish the right to digital death, requiring service providers to inform users about post-mortem data handling and to respect their advance directives.

In practice, this forces major platforms to offer options for designating a third party to manage data after death or to request its deletion.

GDPR and Death

The General Data Protection Regulation only applies to living persons. A deceased person's data is therefore not protected by the GDPR at the European level. However, several EU member states have gone further in national legislation, granting heirs certain rights over the deceased's data under specific conditions.

What Your Heirs Can Do

Your heirs generally have the right to:

  • Access certain information about your accounts and data
  • Close your online accounts and request data deletion
  • Update or lock specific information to respect your stated wishes

They cannot, however, automatically access your private messages or social media accounts without your prior explicit authorization. This is where preparation plays a critical role.

What Platforms Offer

Facebook and Instagram (Meta)

Meta allows you to designate a "legacy contact" who can manage your memorial account or request its deletion. Without a designation, your profile may be memorialized or deleted at a family member's request, but access to private messages generally remains impossible.

Google

Google's "Inactive Account Manager" lets you decide what happens to your data (automatic deletion or transmission to trusted contacts) after a defined period of inactivity. This must be configured while you are alive.

Apple

Apple's Digital Legacy feature allows you to designate a legacy contact who can access your iCloud account after your death using a special access key. This feature must be activated in advance.

Services With No Procedure

Many services (certain online banks, SaaS tools, hosting providers) have no digital succession procedure. In these cases, heirs must often send a death certificate and proof of their heir status, then wait for a response that can take weeks or months.

Digital Assets With Financial Value

Cryptocurrencies

Cryptocurrencies are a special case: they belong only to whoever holds the private keys. Without transmission of the recovery phrase (seed phrase), the funds are permanently lost. No law can force a blockchain to restore funds to heirs.

Payment Accounts

PayPal, Wise, Revolut, and other payment services each have their own procedures. They typically require a death certificate and a document establishing heir status. The process can take several weeks.

Online Income

If you generate income online (YouTube, Patreon, Substack, e-commerce), your heirs must be able to access the accounts to recover remaining funds or continue operations. These revenues are part of your estate for tax purposes.

What the Law Doesn't Cover (Yet)

The law remains incomplete on several points:

Access to private messaging: emails and personal messages are generally considered private correspondence. Your heirs cannot legally access them without your prior consent, even for legitimate needs (finding a contract, accessing an invoice).

NFTs and atypical digital assets: their succession status remains legally ambiguous with no specific framework in most jurisdictions.

Professional accounts: if you are an entrepreneur, the succession of your professional tools combines inheritance law and corporate law, creating complex situations for heirs and co-founders alike.

Write Digital Directives

You can write digital advance directives, separate from your traditional will, specifying:

  • What you want done with each account (deletion, memorialization, transmission)
  • Who is authorized to access what
  • The information needed to carry out these operations

Use a Dead Man's Switch

A dead man's switch like EchoPass automatically transmits your access credentials and wishes to your loved ones after a period of inactivity. This is a technical solution that complements the legal approach.

Inform Your Attorney or Notary

If your digital succession is complex (cryptocurrencies, business, online income), inform your attorney or notary of your digital assets and their estimated value. This simplifies the overall succession process.

Before preparing your digital succession, verify the following:

  1. Have you designated a legacy contact on platforms that support it (Facebook, Google, Apple)?
  2. Have you written digital directives stating your wishes?
  3. Do your heirs know about your financially valuable digital assets?
  4. Have you securely transmitted the necessary access credentials?
  5. Is your attorney or notary informed of your significant digital assets?

Prepare your digital succession with EchoPass and transmit your digital wishes securely.