Ads 468x60px

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Your Digital Afterlife


With everyone utilizing social networking more and more... have you ever wondered what happens to your data after you die? Wow, a bit of a morbid topic, I know, but it's one we must all face. Most people will have a Last Will & Testament drawn up before they pass, but will that include your passwords or emails? Unlikely.

Earlier this week, Google rolled out Inactive Account Manager, and what it does is send a notification to you after a set period of time if you don't check into Google. And by "check in" I just mean to log into your Gmail, or YouTube, or Google+, or any other Google site you use. After that time period expires, whether it's 3 months, 6 months, or a year, it will first send a notice to a mobile number you provide just to say 'Hey, that time delay you set has expired. You OK?' And after that message is sent, if you still haven't checked in after a month, your data is sent to a trusted friend that you specifically said to send it to. Or not, the choice is yours. If you do decide to send your data to a friend, you can choose to send all your Google data, or just pick certain Google properties, like Gmail, Drive, Contacts, Blogger, etc.

Unfortunately, this service only applies to Google products (as itself is a Google product), and as far as I am aware, no other site offers it. Well, there are some third party applications that could allow you to do this, but I would trust the host site more with this type of thing. Of course, you can get around that limitation simply by creating a document in Google Drive with a list of the sites you visit and their passwords.

I do apologize for the morbidness of this post, but I felt it was a great tool that should be utilized. I've already set mine up, and the hardest part was writing the email to the trusted contact that will be sent after the time period expires. It's kind of hard writing a "If you're reading this, then something terrible has happened to me" kind of email. But, like a Last Will... it needs to be done.

Now if you'll excuse me... I have to go live my life. First stop, a local Comic-Con!

No comments:

Post a Comment