Resources - openid/death-and-the-digital-estate GitHub Wiki

DADE Resources

A collection of DADE related resources. In the future we will need to curate this list better. If you see anything missing, file an issue.

DADE CG promotion

  • What Happens to Your Data After You Die? EIC 2025 interview with The Paypers on YouTube

Resources

Internet commentary

Discussions held on #cg-dade

Delegated authority mind map

Mike K in Miro

"Portfolios" of digital assets

Gail H on Slack:

Warning—- this is coffee chat content, to get the two cents of DADE folk… I was just ruminating on the imminent TikTok ban….It made me think about all the people who will not have configured privacy settings before the ban goes into effect…and the questions on their rights afterwards. It is a couple clicks to set up a social media, digital media or digital asset account…but so hard to maintain it. This made me think of DADE, where I have been thinking of the use case immediately at moment of death or incapacity. However, it is of course a much longer problem in « time. » After taking the Digital Legacy Association survey above…I made a list of all the websites they asked about: social media, photo printing companies, community forums ( NextDoor, Glassdoor.) There are so many entities that have their own « life and death » cycle, separate to the individuals « life and death » cycle. If one thought of digital accounts and content and assets like a vanguard S&P 500 mutual fund…you expect the companies or the assets in a portfolio to come and go. After you die…then those individual assets would probably might decrease in number a because a company closes, but it could also increase if things like AI algorithms are building on your digital assets. Over time the assets may be erased or becomes zero value, or go into « storage » that is not retrievable or hard to retrieve, or get sold to another entity. That new entity can sustain user’s preferences effectively, or poorly, or ….maliciously. Even for good managers of digital assets, there would be periodic requests of the asset manager or next of kin to approve changes to the management of the assets…(eg « do you want storage for a fee » or « transition to trash » or « transfer to another data manager » or sell asset). So, the individual managing the digital estate has the immediate challenge of accessing and taking over the accounts and assets, that is the « hearts and minds » part of the problem. But there is also the long long tail, this ongoing portfolio management challenge with changes to the underlying « portfolio » to manage as well. This long term may also be split into use cases that have income streams like media content eating royalties or crypto currencies …people might pay more acute attention assets with clear and easily fungible value. The more painful management problem could be with the assets without a market value, how to manage them…? That part might be more like what insurance policy you need to protect a digital legacy in a digital age.

Dean S:

Gail, this is great! I liken this to something I experienced recently. I found out I had "unclaimed" property in the state of Georgia that goes back more than 20 years. It's not much (a few hundred dollars) but it's enough that I'd like to reclaim it. Yet, the procedure required to claim the money is onerous enough that I may never actually execute the necessary steps. The interesting thing that I see here is that even when we try to manage our assets carefully, we still lose things and may have to reclaim them many years later. And that will include these digital assets!

Gail H:

@Dean H. Saxe agreed. I just went through that process for $1292 held by the State of California for some old employer HSA that was long forgotten about. A Pain, but enough money to at least jump through the KYC/IDA hoops they had for me. So again, when there is a high enough incentive, and the person is alive, action might be taken. If the person is incapacitated or dead, next of kin has no idea, or the asset is not fungible… then the trail can go cold.

Identity-updating list (Canada-oriented) from FinalDocx

Sean M on Slack:

With a recent passing of a loved one, I became aware of finaldocx.ca in Canada. The funeral home provided this service to ensure their identity is updated. Here is some of the places you can send information to:

  1. Notification to Old Age Security Program
  2. Notification to Service Canada
  3. Canada Revenue Agency
  4. HST/GST recalculation
  5. Canada Pension Plan Death Benefit
  6. Canada Pension Plan Survivor's Benefit
  7. Equifax (Credit Reporting Agency)
  8. Cancellation of Provincial Health Card
  9. Cancellation of Provincial Driver's License
  10. Cancellation of Provincial Photo I.D. card
  11. Notification to Social Insurance Program
  12. Transfer rewards cards
  13. Provincial Outdoors Card
  14. Blue Cross
  15. Cancel or transfer utilities
    1. Hydro
    2. Telephone
    3. Cable
    4. Gas
  16. Cancel Mobile Phone
  17. Cancel Credit Cards
    1. Visa
    2. Mastercard
    3. Amex
    4. Credit Union
    5. Retail Cards
  18. Nexus Travel Card