What is at stake
An adult with a phone has a hundred or more accounts, and several of them matter a great deal after a death or a serious injury: the email that receives every bill, the photo library, the bank and investment logins, the subscriptions that keep charging a card. Companies are bound by privacy law and by their own terms, and the usual answer to a grieving relative is that the account can be closed but not opened. Without the passcode, a modern phone stays locked to the family and the carrier alike.
The tools that already exist
- Set up the legacy contact or inactive-account feature that the large email, photo and social platforms offer, which lets a person you choose request your data, or receive it after a set period of silence.
- Turn on emergency access in your password manager, so that a named person can request entry and receives it after a waiting period you set, unless you decline.
- Decide for each social profile whether it should be memorialized or deleted, and record that choice in the platform's settings.
- Store your phone passcode, your password manager's master password and your two-factor backup codes on paper, in a sealed envelope, with your other important papers.
The legal side
Nearly every state has adopted a version of a uniform law on fiduciary access to digital assets. Under it, the choice you make in a platform's own legacy tool comes first, the instructions in your will or power of attorney come second, and the company's terms of service apply only if you were silent. Ask the lawyer who drafts your will to include language granting your executor authority over digital assets and electronic communications. Do not write passwords into the will itself, because a will becomes a public record once it is filed for probate.
An inventory
Make a one-page list that says what exists and where, without the passwords themselves. Include financial accounts, bills on autopay, subscriptions, domain names, anything that earns money, and where your photos are stored. Cryptocurrency needs particular care, because if the private keys or recovery phrase are lost, the money is gone and no court can order it back. Tell your executor where the list is, and review it every year when you do your taxes.
Note Logging in as a dead person with their password can breach a provider's terms, and sometimes the law, even with good intentions. The official legacy tools exist to keep your family clear of that.
