What Happens to Your Emails After You Die

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Death provides a sweet release from the hell that is replying to email, but it raises questions about who gets to look at your inbox after you're gone. Laws governing digital content in the U.S. are all over the place—emails, pics, direct messages, and social media posts can be treated differently after you die—so know what options you have to protect yourself and your company, says Edina Harbinja, a senior lecturer at Aston Law School in Birmingham, England, and an expert in postmortem privacy in emerging technologies. Here are edited excerpts of her conversation:
 
• When you die in the U.S., what happens to your personal email?

In most cases, nothing, unless your family requests access or you'd set up an online tool.
 
• Like Google's Inactive Account Manager?

Yes. That allows you to request the deletion of your Google account after a period of inactivity from three to 18 months. Start by going to account.google.com, and selecting Manage Your Data & Personalization.

The second option is to designate up to 10 beneficiaries to bequeath some or all of your Google data to, including YouTube videos and Calendar and Drive data.
 
• What if you don't set up the account manager?

Next of kin may request access.
 
• Will they get it?

Sometimes. These questions are very open. Last year in New York, a court ordered Apple to give Nicholas Scandalios access to his deceased husband's photos. In the absence of an account manager or an express direction in a will or trust, the terms of service are followed. Those provisions are quite vague, which usually means that a court order will be required.
 
• What about executives who might have sensitive work information in personal email?

Ideally, private emails shouldn't store crucial business information. If they do, then the executive should make provisions in her wills and trusts and authorize executors to handle the data.
 
• What happens to your work email if you die?

It depends on company policy. The law is unclear, and so it's safest to treat every email like a document that would be handed over to the company.
 
• How would I know what my company's rules are?

Procedures should be specified in contracts, but in my experience, this is rare.
 
• The U.S. sounds progressive compared with Europe on these matters.

Over 40 states follow the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, which creates a hierarchy for how inactive accounts will be addressed. In Europe it's different in every country. France's Digital Republic Act recognizes “specific or general directives” for passing on digital assets, including emails. In Germany a court ordered Facebook to grant parents access to their deceased daughter's Facebook account in 2018, so it's likely that emails would be treated in a similar manner—inherited like other property under German law.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bret Begun at bbegun@bloomberg.net, Howard Chua-Eoan

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