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RECAPPING DIGITAL SOCIAL LEGACY ACTIVITY

Last week, in Paper Doll Explains Digital Social Legacy Account Management, we talked about the importance of your digital social legacy, and all the social, emotional, financial, and other reasons why you might want to set an official legacy contact or make sure your digital executor (or digital heir, representative, or designee) can access your digital content and preserve your legacy.

We also saw that most social media platforms have disappointing digital social legacy management tools. Facebook has an official legacy contact, but the instructions are out of date and wonky. Facebook owns Instagram, but there’s no Instagram legacy contact option.

Further, even though Facebook and Instagram, as well as LinkedIn (which also has no legacy contact) will allow you to memorialize your account, only Facebook allows you to name someone to access your data, share it with your family, or preserve your content anywhere other than on the social media platform. And Twitter (X) and TikTok don’t have any policies for memorialization.

Basically, with the exception of Facebook, unless you provide your login credentials to a loved one (which may be considered a violation of terms of service on some platforms, like LinkedIn), there’s no completely kosher way to ensure that your digital social legacy is preserved.

Luckily, Apple and Google are far more prepared to help you and your loved ones secure your digital legacy. Today’s post provides the lowdown on what you need to do to lock everything down now so that your preferred designee can access and distribute your digital assets the way you want.

Designating Your Digital Legacy Contact

Last week, we looked at your best bets for putting your digital legacy in the good hands of your digital executor (or digital heir, representative, or designee). I wrote:

• • Whom do you trust to carry out your wishes, or anticipate your preferences if you leave no instructions? 
  • With whom will you still be in close contact by the time a digital social legacy has to be managed? 
  • To whom are you comfortable giving access to private conversations? 
  • Which of your friends is likely to stay current enough with technology to be able to handle your digital legacy?

So, yes, you have to trust that the person you pick will follow your wishes, just as a traditional executor of a will. By the time of your demise, you’ll still want them to be close to you. 

Whereas social media content is already pretty public to begin with, your digital executor must be someone in whom you’re secure granting access to your whole portfolio of digital assets. Things get much more complicated when we’re also considering your photos, emails, text messages, documents, apps and pretty much anything you access by using your Apple ID or Google credentials (including any small business venture you run)

Finally, with regard to last week’s criteria, your pick has to have more specific technological savvy. If your digital executor has lived in a 100% Android world, will they find it frustrating to amble through your all-Apple neighborhood? On the other side, while most people have some experience with Google products, Apple folks may get stuck on Android mobile quirks.

Technology Confusion via GIPHY

CREATE AN APPLE LEGACY CONTACT

Simply put, an Apple Legacy Contact is the person you designate to have official access to your Apple ID/account after your death. This is not merely someone having your login credentials. Rather, it’s a secure method for giving your trusted contact access to the data stored in your Apple account once you’ve passed away.

Remember, your data covers more than pictures and notes; it’s literally everything associated with your Apple ID, from the content of your cloud accounts to backups and current materials on your Apple devices, whether via iOS, MacOS, or iPadOS.

Prepare to Add Your Apple Legacy Contact

My foregoing suggestions notwithstanding, your Apple Legacy Contact can be (almost) anyone you want. They don’t have to own an Apple device! They don’t even have to have their own Apple ID. (Though they will be assigned a special one later, but not until you make your untimely departure.)

However, your Legacy Contact does have to be at least 13 years old in North America. (Other nations have different age requirements, the same as those for being able to create an Apple account, ranging from 14-16).

In addition to picking your Legacy Contact, you’ll need to make sure that you:

• Are signed into an Apple device (running at least either iOS 15.2, iPadOS 15.2, or macOS Monterey 12.1) with your Apple ID.
• Have enabled and turned on two-factor authentication for your Apple ID.

How to Add Your Apple Legacy Contact

Now that you’re properly logged in, set up your Apple Legacy Contact using the following methods, depending on what kind of device you’re using.

On a Mac:

1. Click on the Apple  menu in the upper left corner of your screen and select System Preferences. Click on your Apple ID.
2. Click on Password & Security and select Legacy Contact. 
3. Click Add Legacy Contact and follow the prompts. 

Be ready to authenticate your access with Touch ID (finger on your keyboard) or by entering your Mac login password. 

On iPhones and iPads: 

1. Go to the Settings app and tap on your name. (You’ll likely see your face to the left of your name, “Apple ID, iCloud+, Media & Purchases” just below your name, and “>” to the right of your name.)
2. Tap Password & Security. On the resulting screen, scroll down almost to the end and tap Legacy Contact.
3. Tap Add Legacy Contact. After a resulting info page, you’ll be taken to your mobile device’s contact page. Just tap the preferred contact’s name.

Be prepared to authenticate with Face ID, Touch ID, or passcode for your device.

If you’ve ever used this process before to set up a Legacy Contact, once you get to step 2 (on any device), you’ll see the name/face for the person you’ve already selected. At that point, in step 3, you can add an additional Legacy Contact (you can have two or more) or tap on the name/face of your current Legacy Contact to see more info.

If you’ve just set up Taylor Swift as your Legacy Contact for the first time, or even if she was already there, the resulting page will say:

Legacy Contact:

Taylor Swift can inherit your data and use your Apple devices after you have passed away. To request access to your account, Taylor will need to provide the access key shared by you and a copy of your death certificate.

Then you’ll see two options:

• View Access Key — This will give you a screen entitled “Legacy Contact Access Key” with a QR code and a multi-line series of letters and numbers. The screen has an option to print a copy for your records or your contact. (See below for informating your Legacy Contact.)                                                                                                                        
• Remove Contact — If you click this, the contact will be removed.

If you want to remove a contact (for example, if you get a divorce from your former contact, or you have a “bad bestie breakup” with Taylor), be sure to assign a new Legacy Contact.

No matter which device you use, Apple will send you an email confirmation when a Legacy Contact is added or removed.

Inform Your Legacy Contact

The next step is to let your Legacy Contact know what’s up. (Most people would not consider this assignment a fun surprise after they’ve lost someone as dear as you!)

Print a paper copy to keep with your estate papers and/or will (perhaps in your safe deposit box) if the executor of your will and your Legacy Contact are the same person.

Alternatively, consider creating a PDF to keep on a secure flash drive with other instructions for your Legacy Contact. I gave a digital copy to my Appple Legacy Contact, but you might want to arrange for delivery only after your demise.

Upon creating your Legacy Contact, Apple gives you the option to print the access key or send a message. However, to send the access key via Apple Messages, your contact has to be using at least iOS 15.2, iPadOS 15.2, or macOS Monterey 12.1 or later. If they accept responsibility, their device will automatically store a copy of the access key in their Apple ID settings. Conversely, if they decline your Legacy Contact request, you’ll be notified that they noped out and you’ll be able to choose someone else.

If your Legacy Contact is using older versions of the Apple software, they’ll be prompted to update and then you can use the send a message option.

If they don’t use Apple devices at all, your only option is to give them the printed version or PDF of the access key.

What Your Apple Legacy Contact Needs to Do

Sometime, long (long, long) in the future, you will eventually pass away peacefully in your sleep. At a respectful point after that, your Apple Legacy contact will need to file an access request. They’ll need:

• A copy of your death certificate. Because of this, you’ll want to make sure your Apple Legacy Contact is, if not also the executor of your will, then someone who has at least an amicable relationship with them. (In other words, if your bestie is otherwise ideal as your Apple Legacy Contact but can’t be in the same room as your spouse or executor without everyone resorting to fisticuffs, it will likely be hard for them to access a copy of your death certificate and set things in motion.  
• The Apple access key (paper or digital) you generated when you chose them as your official Apple Legacy Contact.

If they accepted the role as Legacy Contact when you shared it digitally, it’s listed under their own Apple ID. They’ll follow the same prompts as above for creating a Legacy Contact, but once they get to the Legacy Contact screen, they’ll see your name/face and will be able to tap to get further details, view the access key, and start an access request.

Your Apple Legacy Contact will use the access key to request access. Apple will review the request, verify all of the information, and (assuming everything is A-OK) give them access to your Apple account data.

“How?” you wonder?

Your Legacy Contact will be granted a special Apple ID (separate from your own Apple ID and theirs) that they must set up to access your account. Note: your own Apple ID and password combination won’t work anymore.

Your Apple Legacy Contact will only have access to your data for three years from when the legacy account request is approved. Whether they start accessing the account right away or not until months or years later, the approval date starts the three-year clock! After three years, your Apple account will be permanently deleted. 

What Can Your Apple Legacy Contact Access?

First, be aware that if you have have more than one Legacy Contact, any one of them can independently access your account, make decisions about your data, and even permanently delete data (before the three-year mark when Apple will do it). So think critically before assigning two or more Legacy Contacts.

What what can your Apple Legacy Contact access? Just about anything stored in iCloud or a device’s iCloud backup. You can’t pick and choose and say your Legacy Contact can see your documents but not your photos, or can see your emails but not your text messages. Accessible data may include iCloud Photos, Apple Mail (but not non-Apple Mail platforms stored only in third-party sites, like Microsoft 365), and notes, contacts, calendars, and reminders.

They may also be able to access any iMessages backed up to iCloud, iPhone call history, files in iCloud Drive, Health Data app data, Voice Memos recordings, and your Safari bookmarks and reading list — not that you have anything embarrassing in there — as well as anything on your devices that you’ve secured in iCloud Backup, like App Store apps and all the content (photos, videos, documents, etc.) stored on your device. 

However, your Legacy Contact can’t access any of your payment info on purchases made through Apple Pay or cards saved under your Apple ID, nor any of your in-app purchases. They also can’t get into Keychain to access Safari-based or Wi-Fi user names and passwords, internet accounts, or credit card numbers and expiration dates. If you want them to be able to see that information, provide it separately, outside of Apple channels.

For more, visit Apple’s Data That a Legacy Contact Can Access page.

CREATE A GOOGLE INACTIVE ACCOUNT MANAGER

While Google does not have a legacy contact, per se, it does allow you to designate an Inactive Account Manager. This lets you to grant your loved ones access your accounts and data once the accounts (and presumably, you) become “inactive.”

The Inactive Account Manager ensures that if you cease using your accounts for an extended period of time, there is a way for your digital heirs or others to prompt you to be active (if that’s physically, or metaphysically, possible) or to enable them to access accounts and data on your behalf.

(Somehow, Sleeping Beauty‘s inactivity seems more palatable than thing about a more permanent version.)

What Does Inactive Really Mean (to Google)?

You may have received an email from the Google Accounts Team this weekend. It said that as part of their efforts to protect data:

…We are updating the inactivity period for a Google Account to two years across all our products and services. This change starts rolling out today and will apply to any Google Account that’s been inactive, meaning it has not been signed into or used within a two-year period. An inactive account and any content in it will be eligible for deletion from December 1, 2023.

(…)

If your account is considered inactive, we will send several reminder emails to both you and your recovery emails (if any have been provided) before we take any action or delete any account content. These reminder emails will go out at least 8 months before any action is taken on your account.

After a Google Account is deleted, the Gmail address for the deleted account cannot be used again when creating a new Google Account.

To keep your Google accounts active, the letter pointed out that you can do anything from reading and sending an email (in Gmail), using Google Drive, watching YouTube videos while logged in, “checking in” on Android, downloading an app to an Android device, and more, as specified in their Inactive Google Account Policy. 

The letter points out that you can download your data using Google Takeout, and plan for your inactivity (including any Divine Google Inactivity in the Great Beyond) by setting up the Inactive Account Manager.

Obviously, if you’re alive and kicking, you want to check into your Google accounts often enough in a two-year period that all of your account roots and tendrils won’t be pruned away. Google says it will send periodic emails to your account and any recovery email you have set up.

However, we have no way of knowing how good the Wi-Fi is in the Great Beyond, so if you want  your loved ones to have access to the data in your accounts before Google deletes it, setting up your Inactive Account Manager is a wise next step.

Set Up Your Google Inactive Account Manager

Google’s going to consider you inactive after two years of inactivity, but you won’t want to cut it that closely. Choose a deadline for when the company should consider your account inactive enough — for example, after three months or 12 months of inactivity — to give your Inactive Account Manager a yoohoo. If you pass away and no longer use the account, that timeline will be triggered.

When you set up the Inactive Account Manager, you can choose to either share your data with someone or delete your account once the deadline has passed. You can also choose to share different data with different people. (So, Taylor Swift can access all YourTube videos for your family and write tribute songs based on them; meanwhile, you can designate America’s Dad, Tom Hanks, to safely review your Gmail and Google Drive.)

1. Log into your Google account.
2. Go to your Inactive Account Manager page. It’s initially very sparse, with some boilerplate language.  
3. Click Start.

Google will walk you through a series of prompts:

• State how long Google should wait (3, 6, 12, or 18 months) before considering your account as inactive and notifying your Inactive Account Manager. (Tom Hanks loves you, but he’s a busy guy, so let’s not bother him with false starts.)
• Provide and confirm your own contact information: phone number, Google email address, and a recovery email address.
• Identify whom should be notified and which of your content can be shared with them if you do not respond to attempts to contact you. You can select up to 10 people! For each, you provide an email address and select from a long list of sharable Google-related data (calendars, contacts, Google Drive, Gmail, YouTube, etc.). You can click “Select all,” “Select None,” or specific items.
• Confirm the person(s) to be notified, and (if you wish) add a personal message that will be sent to them only after your account has been inactive for the period of time you’ve designated.
• Create an optional autoreply message to go to anyone who sends you an email at your Gmail account after you’ve been “inactive.” (Be kind. Don’t freak people out after you’re gone.)

Revise or turn off your inactivity plan at any time.

Your Inactive Account Manager will have 3 months from the time you “go inactive” to download a copy of any data that you selected from your Google account. After three months, Google will delete your account and its activity and data. 

Note: if you never set up the inactive Account Manager, your digital heirs will still be able to submit a request to access or close the account. However, they’d have to go through the same onerous (and unofficial) process we discussed last week when talking about closing social media accounts: providing photo ID, sharing a death certificate, and otherwise proving authorization.

RESOURCES FOR MANAGING YOUR DIGITAL ACCOUNT LEGACIES

There are only so many issues that can be covered across two posts regarding how to handle digital legacies. You may want to review the following resources to help you develop your digital estate plan, whether involving major operating system platforms or social media accounts.

Creating Your Digital Estate Plan (Kindle) by my esteemed veteran professional organizing colleague Judith Kolberg — Judith’s books are chock-full of wise advice and clarifying narratives.  This book will guide you through the essentials of setting up a plan to make sure your digital estate and legacy is handled as you want.

ANTICIPATE THE FUTURE

An essential part of organizing your paper and information involves thinking wisely about the future. It requires anticipating what might (or will) happen and taking precautions to make things less problematic when the possible, probable, or guaranteed happens. This is why so many Paper Doll posts deal with organizing your information to pay your taxes or cope with illnesses or prepare for the worst-case scenario.

Because we don’t know when we might get ill, or be unable to handle our financial affairs, or shuffle off this mortal coil, there are documents and actions for ensuring that others will be able to take care of what’s necessary. Some essential posts from the Paper Doll vault for accomplishing these tasks include:

How to Create, Organize, and Safeguard 5 Essential Legal and Estate Documents

The Professor and Mary Ann: 8 Other Essential Documents You Need To Create

Paper Doll’s 10-Minute Tasks to Make Difficult Moments Easier

Paper Doll’s Ultimate Guide to Getting a Document Notarized

A New VIP: A Form You Didn’t Know You Needed

Cross-Training for Families: Organize for All Eventualities

In most cases, attention is focused on tangible, paper documents. However, there are some key digital precautions that everyone should take.

HOW TO SECURE YOUR DIGITAL SOCIAL LEGACY

Until the last few decades, digital assets weren’t a matter for much concern beyond ensuring that your loved ones could access your computer. Thirty years ago, most people did not even have email. It was 1995 before Wells Fargo was one of the first financial institutions to offer online banking, and most people have only needed online credentials for their most important financial accounts in the last 15-20 years.

But then there’s social media. It’s hard for younger people to believe, but Friendster, one of the first social media platforms, didn’t start until 2002. MySpace followed in 2003, and Facebook launched in 2004, but only to college students. Personally, I started on Twitter and Facebook in 2008, and platforms like Instagram and TikTok are still in their relative infancy. (Of course, each social media platform is generally taken up by younger people before its popularity spreads.)

So, it’s understandable that, unlike making sure your loved ones or executor of your will can access your checking and investment accounts to deal with your financial legacy, most individuals have spent little time thinking about handling digital social legacies.

Perhaps you’re thinking you’ll just abandon your accounts, leaving a digital ghost town. You’ll be gone, so who cares? Right? Wrong.

First, social media accounts are always ripe for hacking; you don’t want your account and image taken over by ne’er-do-wells who might prey on unsuspecting friends or followers by faking your identity. Second, social media accounts contain a wide variety of personal information, personal and family history, and photos, things that you want your loved ones to be able to control.

If you operate a business, your social media accounts for your company are almost certainly tied to your personal accounts. (For example, you can’t have a business page on Facebook without first having a personal profile.) This means that the continuity of your company’s marketing is dependent upon control over your own social media.

And finally, there’s a personal legacy to consider. You might want to keep your accounts up, as is, after you depart for all eternity (or at least until a megalomaniacal billionaire destroys your favorite platform). But you might prefer to have it taken down so that links to it cannot be used to harm your good name or be engaged in unseemly online activity. It’s tricky.

However, none of your wishes can be followed if your loved ones lack control over your social media platforms. To that end, let’s look at how you can ensure your digital social legacy is secure.

Put Your Legacy in Good Hands

Before you consider the what, you need to select the who, in terms of whom do you want to put in charge of your digital social legacy? This may or may not be the same person to whom you’d give your Power of Attorney or have as the executor of your will or designate to be guardian of your children.

Whether you call them your digital executor, digital heir, representative, or designee, you need to ask yourself:

• Whom do you trust to carry out your wishes, or anticipate your preferences if you leave no instructions? What you think you’d want in 2023 may not include things that will be unimaginable until 2043.
• With whom will you still be in close contact by the time a digital social legacy has to be managed? It’s hard to believe, but your bestie from college may be someone you haven’t spoken to in a decade by the time you are in your 40’s. One of your closest friends in your 60’s may, sadly, not be in the world (let alone your world) when you’re all in your 80’s.
• To whom are you comfortable giving access to private conversations? You haven’t necessary said or done anything in your Twitter DMs or Facebook chats that would bring shame on your family, but maybe you went through a period where you said unkind things about your ex-spouse or had some spicy conversations? You might not want your current significant other or adult children to read everything in your private social media inbox.
• Which of your friends is likely to stay current enough with technology to be able to handle your digital legacy? Your BFF may meet all the above criteria but not know a QR code from Krispy Kreme, or two-factor authentication from two-for-one taco night. Digital skills matter.

Inventory Your Digital Social Assets

Make an inventory of your social media assets. I’ve previously written about having a general digital asset inventory. Obviously, you’ll make sure the executor of your will has access to all of your financial assets (accounts for banks, brokerage houses, etc.), and next week’s post will look at a wider array of digital assets related to your personal and professional life.

For this, you’ll need  organized list or spreadsheet of all of your social media platforms indicating:

• The name of the platform (Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, etc.)
• The locations where you access it (phone, computer, tablet, etc.)
• Your screen name
• Your login credentials* or the location where you keep them

* Your login credentials should change frequently, which means you may need to update this information often. Rather than keeping your logins on paper or an unlocked spreadsheet, see if your digital password manager offers emergency account access. This allows you to set access for an individual’s email address if something happens to you. 

They can put in their credentials (as set by you), and you’ll be notified by email that they made an access attempt. If you’re still around, you’ll say, “Eeek! Why is the lothario I met on a cruise and married three days later trying to access my digital password manager?! I’m shutting this down and calling my attorney!” But if you take no action — because action is no longer something of which you’re capable — then they’ll gain access and be able to oversee handling/dismantling your accounts.

Once you figure out who is going to handle your digital social legacy, and have arranged for them to know where your accounts exist, there are different protocols for each platform.

Facebook Digital Legacy

One of the good things Mark Zuckerberg and company did was establish the idea of creating a Facebook legacy contact. Your legacy contact can be assigned to manage your main profile after you pass away, assuming the page has been memorialized. (You should set your memorialization preferences in your account. Anyone can request that a page be memorialized. If a request is put in, Facebook goes through a process of verifying that the person has passed away.)

A few notes: first, legacy contacts only apply to your main Facebook profile. Second, profiles don’t have to be memorialized. You can choose to have your profile deleted after you’re gone. Finally, if your legacy contact somehow doesn’t know you’ve passed but someone else requests that Facebook memorializes your account, your legacy contact will be notified by email and be able to set the rest of the process in motion.

Legacy contacts can’t actually log into your account, and thus can’t read any of your messages. They also can’t remove any of your friends or make new friend requests. A Facebook legacy contact isn’t pretending to be you, just managing your account on your behalf.

What can your Facebook legacy contact do?

• Download a copy of what you’ve shared on Facebook, assuming you’ve turned this feature on. This is a nice way to create an archive of your digital life to pass down through your family, and guarantees access to photos and information even if Facebook eventually ceases to exist. (Note, if your digital designee is just logging in with your credentials, they can also download your archive, as just you can do at any time.)
• Write a pinned post for your profile. This might be used to inform others that you’ve passed, share a final message, provide details about a memorial service, or otherwise speak to issues related to your legacy.
• Update the cover photo and profile picture for your account. Consider discussing this, in advance, with your legacy contact or revisit this issue every few years, leaving instructions in a digital will where you might have a digital executor handle such things.
• Request the removal of your Facebook account after a memorial period.

Also, be aware that your legacy contact can view all of your posts, even if you’ve ever created a post with the privacy set to Only Me. (I suspect most people are less likely to have “Only Me” posts where secret, private stuff exists. I mean, who would bother posting that to Facebook only to hide it? I assume most people use Only Me posts to draft posts, then forget to change the privacy setting. No? Just me?)

To add a legacy contact to your main Facebook profile, you can try to follow the official instructions here. There are instructions for whether you’re using a computer browser, iPhone app, or Android app, and there’s a “More” dropdown for help with the iPad app, mobile browsers, or Facebook “Lite.” The variety is the good news. The bad news? They’re out of date.

Unfortunately, when I painstakingly followed Facebook’s instructions for the computer browser (so I could verify them for you), I found that the settings Facebook said would be visible were not. Blerg.

I selected Settings & Privacy, then clicked Settings, and then was supposed to see General Profile Settings, from which I was to locate Memorialization Settings. But I never saw General Profile Settings, and none of the options I clicked yielded anything that looked like that. Ugh!

Sooooo, I followed the iPhone settings, and they were also not exact. However, I was able to noodle my way to what I needed, so I’m going to give you my own directions for using the iOS app to set your memorialization and legacy contact settings (and hope maybe Facebook’s Android directions are correct). 

• Click on your face/avatar on the bottom right of the iOS Facebook app.
• Scroll down to Settings & Privacy and then tap on Settings.
• You’ll see the logo for Meta (Facebook’s parent company) and then Accounts Center. The first option is “Personal details.” Tap that. Weirdly, this will open the actual Accounts Center on a fresh screen. 
• Scroll down to Personal Details (yes, again), and on the resulting page, click on Account Ownership and Control.
• You will see “Memorialization” or “Deactivation or Deletion” as options. Select Memorialization. On the resulting page, you should be able to select Memorialization and your legacy contact. I’d set mine years ago, so my only options were to delete or change what I’d already created.

It’s frustrating that Facebook doesn’t make this easier, and more frustrating that their instruction pages fail to keep pace with their platform changes. Imagine how much more frustrating it would be if you waited decades and tried to deal with this while in poor health or declining cognitive capacity! 

Twitter (X) Digital Legacy

Twitter has become X (but almost nobody is actually calling it that); the documentation still says Twitter. And, unfortunately, Twitter/X does not have a formal legacy contact. Instead, your digital executor or representative will have to contact Twitter directly to delete your account. (Twitter does not have memorialized accounts.)

Twitter/X is very clear that, “We are unable to provide account access to anyone regardless of their relationship to the deceased.” So, if you don’t provide login credentials for your account to your loved ones, they will not be able to archive your posts. If there’s any chance that your family will want to archive the content of your account, they should follow these steps:

1. On your Twitter/X account page, navigate to settings. (In the browser, click on “More” at the bottom of the left-side column, and Settings & Support will be your last option. In iOS, click on your face/avatar, scroll down, and Settings & Support will be the last option.)
2. Click on Settings and Privacy.
3. Click on Your Account.
4. Click on Download an Archive of Your Data. You may have to re-confirm your password or send a code shared to you by email or text.

Note: if your designee has access to your account credentials to do all of the above, they can also follow steps 1-3 above and then select Deactivate Your Account.

To close your Twitter/X account (without access to login credentials), someone will need to submit a request for the removal of a deceased user’s account. 

They’ll need to go to the Twitter deactivation page and select “I need help deactivating and account owned by a person who is incapacitated, or deceased” and then select “The owner of the account is deceased.” They’ll then fill in the remainder of the form with their name and contact information, relationship to you (the account owner), and the Twitter account name.  

Allegedly (because we’ve all heard stories about how things are going at Twitter/X these days), your designee will be emailed instructions for providing more details, including information about themselves (including proof of identification) and a copy of the death certificate, in order to process deletion of the account.

Instagram Digital Legacy

Instagram is a Facebook-owned platform, so you have the same options as with Facebook, to have your account memorialized or deleted after you pass away.

Mystifyingly, however, Instagram does not allow you to make your selections while you are still living! Rather, to have your Instagram account memorialized or removed, if your designees does not have access to your login credentials, they’ll have to follow a similar process to Twitter’s and furnish proof that they are your verified representative and that you have passed on.

This page explains how to request memorializing an Instagram account. They will start by filling out this Instagram form for memorialization or this form for deletion and provide information about themselves and the deceased, including uploading a copy of a death certificate.

As with other platforms, if your designee has access to your login credentials, they can log in as you to download and archive your entire account for posterity. Of course, as with most social accounts, you can do this periodically on your own. I don’t really use Instagram, so my entire account activity is visible on one screen.

TikTok Digital Legacy

If you only use TikTok as a source of viewable entertainment, you may not care what happens with your account. Still, I’d advise you to have your digital executor log in with your credentials and close your account via these steps:

1. Tap your Profile icon at the bottom right of the screen.
2. Now tap the three horizontal lines (sometimes colloquially called the hamburger) at the top right of the screen. 
3. Select Settings and Privacy.
4. Select Account. (The official instructions say to tap “Manage Your Account” but that appears to be an outdated choice.)
5. Select Deactivate or Delete Your Account and confirm your selection.

On that same account screen, the next option down lets you choose Download Your Data; they’ll get an archive of your profile, activity, and app settings. However, the format options are TXT (human-readable) or JSON (machine-readable) files, so your loved ones will be able to see random comments you made, but not the cute videos you watched.

If you are a TikTok creator, note that there are no memorialization options. Your digital legacy contact can (as described above) act as you, with your credentials. It’s not uncommon to see someone’s parent or spouse appear on TikTok, explaining that the account holder has passed away. However, without access to those credentials, there’s no way to alert someone’s TikTok followers and fans that they are gone.

This is problematic because many TikTok creators use their accounts to earn money. Left unattended, an account (and the resultant earnings) could be hacked, and imposters could use the account to scam followers. To prevent this, and to ensure any monetization of existing videos is protected, this is one account where making sure your loved ones have your credentials and can access your account may protect not only your creative legacy, but your financial one as well.

LinkedIn Legacy Contact

Perhaps because LinkedIn is designed for professionals, you’d expect that more thought would be put into protecting account-holders’ legacies. I was disappointed, however, to find out that LinkedIn does not allow you to set a legacy contact in advance, nor can you arrange for page memorialization for yourself.

(This is LinkedIn’s official example of a memorialized account. Research indicates, and I hope, that this is not an actual person’s memorialized account.)

Your designee can contact LinkedIn, however, to arrange to memorialize your profile or close it. For either option, they must fill in a form verifying their standing to act on your behalf and providing proof of your passing.

It’s important to note that unlike (for example) Facebook’s memorialization practice, a legacy contact or representative can’t add a tribute or post explaining what has transpired. Instead, LinkedIn locks the account.

Still, there are significant benefits to LinkedIn’s memorialization process. They place a memorialization badge on the profile page as a symbol of remembrance. They also cancel all LinkedIn products (except Apple-related subscriptions), terminate connections to third-party services and close mobile and desktop sessions (so nobody can sneak into the deceased’s office or home computer to access account information).

LinkedIn also stops sending notifications to the decedent (so the loved one handling their email won’t have to deal with junk mail) and ceases sending notifications about them (re: birthdays, work anniversaries, etc.) to members of their network. The person who died will stop popping up in automated sections of the site, like “People you may know” and “recommended connections.” If you’ve ever been startled to see the name and likeness of someone who has passed away show up on your Facebook or Twitter account unexpectedly, you know how much a relief LinkedIn’s approach could be.

JUST THE BEGINNING

Social media accounts are just the beginning of your non-financial digital legacy. Next time, we’re going to look at how you can set up your Legacy Contact for your Apple ID account and an Inactive Account Manager (and Trusted Contact) for your Google accounts. 

I’ll also share a bevy of resources for helping you manage accounts for those who have passed and make things easier for directing your own digital legacy.