Enter the digital executor

NOT so long ago, we had safes and locked filing cabinets filled with our wills, financial information and important documents locked away and the combination or keys entrusted to a member of the family to take care of in the event of our passing.

These days in the era of digitilisation, it's not just physical vital documents we have to worry about. With the advent of the Internet and the new digital culture, many of us also have to think about our digital assets and legacy; what would happen to the countless e-mails, on-line profiles, uploaded pictures and websites that we have cultivated so carefully in life, after our death?

As discussed previously, a Facebook profile can be memorialised after our demise by a loved one or a friend, but for those of us who choose not to have a digital afterlife, this would mean that the profile in question would have to be deleted at our behest. But how can we be assured that this instruction will be carried out?

This is where a digital executor comes in. In a role similar to that of an executor of a will in real life, a digital executor oversees your online belongings, such as e-mails, domain names, blogs, etc and will take care of them according to your wishes.

Though an easier option might be to actually write down each website account's username and password on paper and store it with the rest of those important document filed away, but the method seems rather archaic for those who are well versed and have an enormous amount of digital fingerprints in the form of varied profiles and personas to take care of. There are already a few websites online that offer a digital executor service such as Legacy Locker (legacylocker.com), Entrustet (entrustet.com) and Asset lock (assetlock.net), which offer an encrypted space to store your usernames and passwords and allow you to assign beneficiaries of your digital assets.

Alternatively, if you're not comfortable storing your precious passwords, you can sign up for Death Switch (deathswitch.com) which will send your pre-written assigned e-mails with your messages and instructions to loved ones, friends and co-workers after your passing. The site works by periodically sending an e-mail with a link to your primary e-mail address, prompting you to fill in your password. If the password is not entered after a certain period of time, the website will then automatically send the pre-written e-mails as instructed.

The Brunei Times