The digital legacy: a phenomenon of the last decades

Remember the 90s of the last century? Flannel shirt grunge, girlie fashion, Eurodance and boy bands. A colorful world, but one thing was still largely missing: intensive use of the Internet!

    According to the German Federal Statistical Office, only 8.1% of German private households had an Internet connection in 1998.
    By contrast, according to the statisticians, this figure had already risen to 80.2% by 2013. 

Technological progress and the high level of equipment with Internet connections are certainly also leading to us being more and more active on the Net. Can you still remember which portals, forums, networks and online stores you used ten years ago, or how many e-mail accounts you have opened over the years? That's already hard to do?

What will it look like when you have several decades of Internet use behind you? And what happens to your accounts in exness fx broker and stored data when you die? Time to think about your own digital legacy! How do you want to deal with this issue?

What is meant by "digital legacy"?

First, you need to know what all falls under the term "digital legacy." If we define the term broadly, this includes all your electronically stored data - from your written documents stored on your computer to the photos stored in the cloud or e-mails saved in your webmail account. The data that is floating around on the web is particularly problematic, as your potential heirs cannot possibly guess where you have left data traces everywhere. All online accounts - whether with your insurance company, social networks, forums or anything else - can be relevant.

Three options - from "do-it-yourself" to "after me, the deluge"

In purely theoretical terms, the topic of "digital legacy" could be approached in at least three ways. Which type are you?

    The do-it-yourself type: This type of Internet user sees the need for action and takes care of keeping his digital legacy as small as possible during his lifetime. By preparing well, they also make it easier for their heirs to manage the not entirely avoidable legacies on the Internet after their death.

    The service-is-everything type: This representative is always up to date and has already learned that there are service companies dedicated to the digital legacy of deceased persons. He lets his survivors know that such a service would be fine with him, or already books a corresponding service himself. In doing so, he hopes to reduce the burden on himself and his heirs.

    The "after me, the deluge" type: This Internet user sees no need for action. He tends to think, "After I die, I don't care what happens to my data anyway."

If you count yourself as a "service-is-everything" type, you should bear in mind that not all solutions are ideal in this area. This is especially true if a company gains full access to your data after your death: It is questionable whether everything will work out the way you want and imagine. Even before your death, there is already at least a theoretical risk of misuse if you provide all the necessary access data while you are still alive so that the company in question can act quickly after your death.

The "after-the-flood" type also accepts some risks. These include the following:

    High expense for survivors: If you don't deal with your digital legacy, you make life unnecessarily difficult for your survivors. This is because they must also be able to take care of contracts that are only documented online, for example.

    Emotional burden on surviving dependents: It can be additionally emotionally stressful for survivors if they are repeatedly reminded of the deceased in an inappropriate way by accounts to which they do not have access. Especially in social networks, many relatives find an account in mourning mode more bearable than one that looks as if nothing has happened. In an unfavorable case, the latter would possibly also be open to innocent questions from acquaintances who do not yet know about the death of the person in question. And an unsuspecting "How are you?" does not look good as a publicly visible message to a dead person. You can find out what options are available on the best-known social networks for deleting accounts after the death of the user or putting them into mourning mode on the website of the NRW consumer advice center.