Question 1

What happens to your digital accounts when you die?

Accepted Answer

Far less automatically than people assume. Most accounts are **licences to use a service**, not property, and access is governed by the provider's terms rather than by your will — which is why planning matters more here than for physical possessions.

**The fundamental obstacle.** Terms of service typically prohibit sharing credentials and do not allow accounts to be transferred. Providers are also constrained by computer misuse and data protection law, which is why they are cautious even with a death certificate and a grant of probate.

**What the major platforms actually offer**, and these must generally be set up **in advance**:

**Legacy or inheritance contacts**, where a nominated person can request access or manage limited aspects after death. Several major platforms now provide this.

**Inactive account handling**, where an account is shared or deleted after a defined period of no activity.

**Memorialisation**, freezing a social profile rather than deleting it.

**Deletion on request**, which is usually available to next of kin with documentation.

**What you can and cannot pass on:**

**Purchased media** is typically a **non-transferable personal licence** — films, music, ebooks and games usually die with you, however much was spent.

**Photos and documents** stored in cloud accounts are practically recoverable if access is arranged.

**Domain names, websites and monetised accounts** are genuine assets with real value and need explicit handling.

**Cryptocurrency** is the starkest case: **without the keys or seed phrase, the assets are irrecoverable by anyone**, and substantial sums have been lost exactly this way.

**Loyalty points and airline miles** vary, with many forfeited on death.

**What to actually do:**

**Use a password manager with an emergency access feature**, which is the single most effective step.

**Set legacy contacts** where offered.

**Keep an inventory** of accounts with value or meaning — not passwords in a will, since wills become public documents.

**Leave written instructions** with your executor about location and intent.

**Consider two-factor recovery**, since an executor with a password and no access to the authenticator gets nowhere.

General information; law varies by jurisdiction.

Question 2

What is a digital identity wallet?

Accepted Answer

An application holding verifiable credentials — cryptographically signed statements about you issued by a trusted body — that you present selectively, without the verifier needing to contact the

Question 3

What is DRM, and why does content you bought disappear?

Accepted Answer

Digital rights management is technology restricting how digital content can be used, copied and accessed. Its existence is why "buying" digital content frequently does not mean what the button says.

Question 4

Are password managers actually safe to use?

Accepted Answer

The concern people raise is reasonable: putting every credential in one place seems to create a single point of failure. In practice a password manager is a very large improvement over the realistic

Question 5

What is the difference between anonymisation and pseudonymisation?

Accepted Answer

Whether the data can still be linked back to a person. Anonymised data cannot, and falls outside data protection law entirely. Pseudonymised data can, with additional information, and remains fully

Question 6

What is a subject access request, and what must an organisation provide?

Accepted Answer

A right of access under data protection law allowing anyone to ask an organisation what personal data it holds about them, and to receive a copy — and the scope is wider than most organisations

Question 7

Why do old files become unreadable, and what is digital preservation?

Accepted Answer

Because a file is only meaningful to software that understands its format, and both the software and the medium it sits on decay — on timescales far shorter than people assume. The three separate

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