Perhaps you have a plan in place for those who will survive you. You have IRAs, Insurance, a Trust or two, a Will but what about your online life after death? How do protect your privacy and prevent identity theft?
1.
Appoint a digital executor – This is a person who will receive all of the security and access information for your online assets in the case of your death. You don’t want this information to be available until it is needed.
2.
Use a password management tool – There are services that let you collect and update all your information in one place and secure it with just one password which you can use to access and update the information as needed. Then you can leave just the one password for your digital executor. LastPass and RoboForm are two service providers, but there are plenty to choose from. I suggest you have one with a two-factor authentication.
3.
Prepare your own list of security and access information – Be sure to keep this list in a very secure place and update it regularly. You can leave it in a safe deposit box which your Executor can access upon appointment. They can then provide this list to your digital executor.
4.
Check to see if the website or provider has some protections in place – Google’s Inactive Account Manager is probably the most well-known of these protections but other sites have similar protections.