How to Secure Your Digital Legacy

What happens to your online accounts when you die? We look at a few simple steps you can take to preserve your digital legacy.

While creating and maintaining a comprehensive estate plan should be the ultimate goal of every household, in reality, a tremendous part of our lives — assets, documents, financial information, and accounts — exist digitally. It can be difficult enough remembering which digital services and accounts you’ve created over the years, let alone making them readily accessible. Yet, oftentimes it is your digital legacy that can prove most crucial to loved ones once you pass. 

Fortunately, there are a few simple steps you can take to ensure your digital legacy is preserved. Many of them are provided by platforms you probably already use. In this post, we’ll explore the digital legacy features these services provide, how they work, and what you should consider when setting them up.

Password Managers with Legacy Features

Most folks today would find managing their myriad digital accounts impossible without a password manager. Whether paid or free, many of these password managers also have built-in features to provide access to a loved one when necessary.

1. LastPass: Emergency Access

LastPass's Emergency Access feature allows users to designate within the app trusted individuals who can access their password vault in case of emergencies.

Pros: 

• Simple Setup: You can designate trusted people directly from your LastPass vault.

• Customizable: You can choose a delay (e.g., 48 hours, 7 days) for each designated individual before access is granted. This gives you time to deny a request if it's made unexpectedly.

• Don’t Need to Share Master Password: Your emergency contact never needs your master password.

Cons: 

• Requires the Recipient to Have a LastPass Account

• You Must Be Inactive to Trigger Access: The system assumes you're dead or incapacitated if you don't deny the access request.

• Unintentional Access: If the account owner doesn't receive or respond to the notification due to technical issues or email problems, access might be unintentionally granted or denied.

• Only One-Time Access: The emergency contact can’t update or manage your account once access is granted.

• Premium Feature: Emergency Access is a paid-only feature. If your account lapses into a free account, you will no longer be able to add new emergency contacts.

Summary:

If you’re already using lastpass premium to share passwords with loved ones on a premium tier, you should definitely setup emergency access as another layer of security. However, given the complexity of setup, it may not be the best choice for less tech savvy families that might have trouble setting up and maintaining their accounts.

2. 1Password: Emergency Kit

1Password’s Emergency Kit is a printable PDF that includes key information someone would need to access your 1Password vault in case of emergency. It contains your Secret Key, email address, and a field to write in your Master Password (not stored digitally for security reasons). The Kit is designed to be stored physically or securely shared with a trusted contact.

Pros:

• Straightforward: It’s a single document containing all the info someone needs to access your vault.

• Works Offline: Can be printed and stored in a secure place like a safe or safety deposit box.

• No Account Setup Required for Others: Your emergency contact doesn't need a 1Password account.

• Doesn’t Expire: While 1Password doesn’t offer a free tier, if your paid account lapses, emergency kit can still be used to access your account.

Cons:

1. Not Secure by Default: If you write your Master Password in the kit, and it falls into the wrong hands, your vault is fully accessible. If you don’t write it down, the kit is useless without it.

2. No Notification or Access Control: Unlike LastPass, 1Password doesn’t alert you if someone tries to access your account using the kit.

3. Requires Manual Planning: You need to print it, write on it, and store it securely. If you forget to update it when your password changes, it may become invalid.

4. No Failsafe: If the emergency kit is lost, damaged, or never shared with your trusted person, there's no backup way for them to get in; 1Password cannot help recover a master password.

Summary:

The 1Password Emergency Kit is a solid, low-tech solution that puts you in control but requires advance planning, careful storage, and doesn’t provide an automated or digital mechanism.

3. Google: Inactive Account Manager

Inactive Account Manager is a tool that lets you decide what happens to your Google Account (Gmail, Drive, Photos, etc.) or notify someone after a period of inactivity.

Pros:

• Granular Control: You can select which data (e.g. Gmail, Photos, Drive) to share and with whom (up to 10 contacts).

• Automatic: It activates after a user-defined period of inactivity (from 3 to 18 months), so it's useful if you're incapacitated or have passed away without warning.

• Option to Delete Your Account: You can opt to automatically delete your entire Google Account once the inactivity trigger is met.

• No Separate App Needed: The settings are built-into your google account and are free.

• Security: Google attempts to contact you multiple times (via email and phone) before triggering the plan, reducing the chance of accidental activation.

  
  

Cons:

1. Not Designed for Real-Time Emergencies: It only triggers after extended inactivity. There’s no way for loved ones to request access manually if you die suddenly and haven’t set it up.

2. Limited to Google Services: It only applies to Google data, not your passwords (even if you use Google password manager), banking, social media, or other important accounts.

3. No Access to Gmail Login or Passwords: Contacts receive a data archive and cannot log into your account or interact with it. This limits some practical uses (like closing accounts or replying to emails).

   
   

Summary:

Google’s Inactive Account Manager is an easy way to secure your digital legacy. But it only works if you set it up in advance and it's not useful for people who need full account access or immediate action after your death. For Google users, it’s an important component to setup but but not a complete legacy solution on its own.

4. Apple: Legacy Contact security

Apple’s official way to let loved ones access your iCloud data after you die allows you to designate any number of legacy contacts to gain limited access to your account.

Pros

1. Full Access to iCloud Data: Legacy Contacts can access photos, notes, mail, contacts, calendars, and more stored in iCloud.

2. Does Not Require Apple ID Credentials: Your contact doesn’t need your Apple ID or password, just their own Apple ID, your death certificate, and the access key you provided. It also does not need to be setup again when one resets their password.

3. Secure & Privacy-Conscious: Apple uses a digital access key + death certificate for validation. This balances ease of access with strong privacy controls.

4. Built Into iOS, iPadOS, and macOS: Easy to set up from your device, so no third-party tools needed.

5. Multiple Legacy Contacts Supported: You can add more than one person, family member, or executor.

   
   

Cons

1. Must setup ahead of time: If you don’t enable this while alive, your loved ones cannot access your iCloud without pursuing a court order.

2. Legacy Contact Must Submit a Death Certificate: The process requires uploading an official death certificate, which adds time and complexity.

3. Limited to iCloud Data: It doesn't include licensed content (e.g., purchased music or movies), Keychain (password manager), or third-party app data.

4. No Partial Access Options: The contact gains full access to all eligible iCloud data without an option to restrict or customize access to just photos or notes, for example.

5. No Activity-Based Trigger: Unlike Google’s Inactive Account Manager, there’s no automatic handoff based on inactivity. The process starts only after death is confirmed.

   
   

Summary

Apple’s Legacy Contact is a straightforward feature that anyone with an Apple account should enable. It gives loved ones access to important memories and information. Yet, as with Google’s solution, it limits access to keychain and passwords. Therefore, it’s important to combine these settings with other legacy preservation tools.

Final Thoughts

Leveraging the legacy features of these platforms is a simple way to ensure your loved ones a smoother process in managing your digital estate. If you already use one of these platforms, configuring their legacy feature is a great first step that can have a big impact. 

However, as we see from our reviews, every solution varies in terms of configuration, limitations, and requirements. None is sufficient on its own. To protect your digital life and make things easier for your loved ones, it's highly recommended to set up legacy access across all major platforms you use. Additionally, to avoid any surprises ensure you test your setup and keep your trusted contacts in the loop about your plans. A digital legacy is only useful if someone knows it exists.