What Happens to Your Data When You Die?

1The default: accounts simply wait

No service is told automatically when a user dies. Unless someone reports the death, an account carries on as if its owner were simply quiet. Profiles stay visible, subscriptions may keep charging, and the data sits on company servers.

This is happening at a vast scale. Oxford researchers Carl Öhman and David Watson estimated in 2019 that at least 1.4 billion Facebook users will die before 2100, even if the network had stopped gaining new users in 2018.

Eventually, two things can change an account’s fate: the provider’s own inactivity rules, or a request from family or an executor. Providers almost never hand over passwords. They decide case by case what, if anything, to release.

2Service by service: what happens by default

3Why private messages are the hardest part

Photos and documents can often be recovered through a legacy feature or a court order. Private conversations are different. They involve other people, many are end-to-end encrypted, and platforms are cautious about revealing them. A Facebook legacy contact, for example, cannot read the person’s private messages.

The good news is that every person in a chat usually has their own copy. If a conversation with someone matters to you, the simplest protection is to save it now, while you can still open it. Our guides on exporting a WhatsApp chat and preserving a parent’s messages explain how.

4What the law says

Laws differ by country; this is general information, not legal advice. Four examples show how different the approaches are.

United States: RUFADAA

The Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act was approved by the Uniform Law Commission in 2015 and has since been adopted by most states. It sets an order of priority. Instructions given in a provider’s online tool come first, then instructions in a will or similar document, then the provider’s terms of service. Without the user’s consent, an executor generally receives a catalogue of communications (who wrote to whom, and when) but not their content.

European Union: the GDPR

The General Data Protection Regulation says plainly, in recital 27, that it does not apply to the personal data of deceased persons. Member states may make their own rules, and several have.

France: instructions for after death

France’s 2016 Digital Republic law lets people leave directions on how their personal data should be kept, deleted or shared after death. General directions can be lodged with a trusted third party certified by the data protection authority, the CNIL; specific ones can be given to individual services. Without directions, heirs have only limited rights, such as closing accounts.

Germany: accounts can be inherited

On 12 July 2018 the Federal Court of Justice ruled that the parents of a 15-year-old girl who had died could inherit her Facebook user contract, including access to her account and messages. The court saw no reason to treat digital content differently from paper letters, which pass to heirs.

5If someone has just died: a few gentle cautions

There is no need to deal with accounts in the first days. When you feel ready, these points can prevent losses you cannot undo:

• Do not close accounts first. Google, for example, says it cannot provide account contents after closure. Download or request data before asking for deletion.
• Keep devices as they are. Phones and computers may hold the only copy of chats and photos. Avoid resetting them, and keep them charged.
• Use official routes. Each service has its own form. You will usually need a death certificate and proof of your relationship or role.
• Check before signing in as the person. Using someone’s password may break the service’s terms, and in some places the law. Ask a lawyer if you are unsure.

6Digital remains and AI simulations

Messages left behind can now be used to build AI simulations of the people who wrote them. Because privacy law offers the dead little protection, these decisions often fall to families and companies. Our article on the digital afterlife industry explains who offers such services, and Is an AI clone really you? explores what a simulation can and cannot be.

Memory Clone is one such tool: a Windows app, currently in alpha, that builds a private AI simulation from chats you export yourself. Imported originals and the memory index stay on your PC, every clone is presented as AI, and it uses text only. Cloning another living person requires their permission under our Acceptable Use Policy. If it is ever useful to you, the download page has the details.