Proper Handling of a Loved One’s Digital Record

At Lindquist Mortuaries, it’s our honor to assist those dealing with the passing of a loved one with a number of different important tasks. From funeral planning and burial or cremation options to writing obituaries and many other important areas, our caring staff has the experience and discretion to help you handle every detail with the proper care.

Within recent years, a new area has sprung up within this realm that many will need to consider after a loved one passes: Assessing and perhaps even taking action with various areas of your loved one’s digital footprint. Let’s look at a few important areas to which we’re referring here, including a couple that may have a significant impact on financial assets or other important areas as you move forward in life.

If you’re the spouse or partner of the departed, hopefully the two of you have arranged certain online asset areas well in advance of such an event. In cases where you have not, however, one of the first and most important steps will be obtaining control over their assets in a fair, legal way.

If you do not have the required password and online login information available, the first step here is to retain control over your loved one’s phone number. This area is a vital one for helping you work through the red tape and regain access to banking or other online assets, a process that will be completed through contact with representatives from these financial institutions.

Once again, this is an area where it’s more convenient if you and your departed loved one shared passwords, or at least kept a file where they could be stored. If not, you should once again check the phone route – many people access their email accounts through their smartphone with no password needed, so this can be a simple way to receive this access. In many cases, email accounts are also highly valuable for obtaining access to banking or online asset accounts; emails are often used as identity verification methods.

Unfortunately, some of the primary social networks out there today won’t automatically pass control over accounts to a loved one following a death. This depends in part on whether your loved one took any steps here in advance – there are clauses that can be added to a will that state that the accounts will be placed into “memorial” status after your passing, allowing for messages of love to be passed on from anyone who chooses.

In most cases, accessing photos is the simplest area here. If you know the cloud or other storage options your loved one used for photos, these can usually be accessed without a password.

For more on properly handling a loved one’s digital record following their passing, or to learn about any of our funeral planning or other services, speak to the staff at Lindquist Mortuaries today.

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