closed
closed
Technical News for Women
Tech Trends for Women
  • Women and Internet
    • E-mail
      • Free e-mail accounts
    • Add-Ons and Plugins
    • Connecting to Internet
    • Websites
  • Working Mothers
  • Gadgets
  • Music Download
  • Photo Sharing
    • Smugmug
    • Flickr
    • Kodak Easy Share Gallery
  • Education Tools
  • Health and Tech
  • Shopping
  • Self Help Videos

Home » Social Networking Sites » God Forbid! But what will happen to your Facebook® profile, after you die?

God Forbid! But what will happen to your Facebook® profile, after you die?

Your Facebook account is your online persona and an account where you archive photos, relationships, your blogs, personal or professional communications, videos and the like that speak of you and your life. Like the Facebook account, you are using a range of other online accounts where you have divided various streams of communications and components of your life. Your Picasa online album conserves all your memorabilia including photos and videos. Your Gmail account archives vast resources of data. There can be and several other accounts too that may carry your digital self. In order to keep all your data safe, you backup and secure everything. ‘Cloud’ is one technology, increasingly becoming popular, that people generally are using these days. It ensures that we find all our data intact, after we wake up. But what happens to the data in case we do not wake up, one day, when we die? Is there a way to decide heirs and leave our digital stuff in their hands?

To pass right or not?

We often have online accounts that we choose our family members not to know about – what if they get their hands on those embarrassing information or photos, once we are gone? Is there a way that we can maintain our privacy for our digital stuff eternally? Well, there are some sites like Yahoo! that completely delete users’ digital assets including user identity and content and prevent access from other people while receiving a copy of death certificate to preserve confidentiality of users. On the other hand, YouTube allows declaration of an heir and transfers the access of its users’ content along with a webpage, instructing heirs while they get access to the account and content. Google has this automated process of deleting content and access to an account, which has been noticed inactive for nine months.

Memorial service

Facebook has kept its policy a little bit sophisticated. Facebook keeps the profile in ‘Memorial State, once it is aware that the account holder has passed away. In the ‘Memorial State’ status, some parts of the profile and certain features like contact information, status updates are kept covered from viewing to preserve privacy of the deceased Facebook account holder. Friends of that account owner will be able to see the profile and leave messages on the Wall. Thus, friends can form groups and express their mourning for the departed account owner.

There are a number of websites that have emerged to help you plan and designate beneficiaries or ‘heirs’ who you want to carry out and conserve your account credentials and content. Legacy Locker, DataInherit and Entrustet are the digital afterlife planning websites to help you decide ‘digital executors’ and take care of your online accounts.

By Harmeet


Harmeet loves to simplify technology for all readers who are interested in the genre but find it complex to comprehend. She is a writer by passion and wants to enrich the life of others by writing about the latest gadgets, apps, and devices in the simplest and the most useful manner. Her blogs are detailed, interesting, and definitely fun to read…

  • View all posts by Harmeet →
  • Blog
  • Google+

1 Response to " God Forbid! But what will happen to your Facebook® profile, after you die? "

  1. World Without Me says:
    November 23, 2011 at 9:45 am

    As you mentioned most major websites have vague policies when it comes to deceased user accounts. Gmail’s process especially is quite tedious and can take more than 6-8 months! To safeguard our online interests we must take measures to pass on all login info alongwith our wishes to our heirs. World Without Me is a comprehensive digital afterlife planning website where you can create, store and pass on your digital legacy to your heirs.

    Reply

Leave a comment

Click here to cancel reply.

CAPTCHA Image
Refresh Image
*

Tags: Facebook, Social Networking
 

 Subscribe in a reader


 
Subscribe
Subscribe via RSS feed
Subscribe by Email
Editor's Pick »
www.mizwhiz.com on Facebook
-->
2021 Mizwhiz.com All rights reserved.
| Unless expressly provided, Mizwhiz.com is an independent technical support services provider and is not affiliated to any third party.