Do you have a plan for your digital assets after death?

Years after her husband died unexpectedly, a widow said she is working to save the photos he left behind. They’re on the cloud and she doesn’t have access to her late husband’s account.

Read on for her story and the steps you can take to secure your digital legacy.

“THOSE ARE THE MEMORIES I HAVE”

After a picture-perfect wedding, Caroline and Michael Monroe honeymooned in Ireland.

“It was a dream until it was a nightmare,” said Caroline Monroe.

During the trip, Michael was killed in a car crash. He was 31 years old.

Five years later, Caroline said she wears his wedding ring on a necklace, “I wear it every single day and every time I hear it, I think of him and hope he’s with me.”

Caroline is trying to unlock more memories: photos Michael took. They are stored in an online account.

“I remember, distinctly, on our trip there were some pictures he took that I never saw,” Caroline told reporter Caitlin Burchill. “They’re just floating out there in Google.”

Caroline said after Michael died, a friend uploaded the photos to Michael’s Google Drive for safekeeping before getting rid of Michael’s phone.

“We assumed I would be able to access [it] somehow,” Caroline said. “I’ve tried to log into his computer. Apparently, I don’t know his passwords either.”

Caroline contacted our colleagues at NBC Connecticut Responds for help – worried she would run out of time to get into the account. Last May, Google announced it would start deleting inactive accounts. The announcement said Google found accounts that had not been used for at least two years were more likely to be compromised. Google said it would purge inactive accounts in phases, starting in December 2023.

Caroline, who has Michael’s death certificate and their marriage license, was not able to access Michael’s Google Drive.

“While she is the next of kin, there's still the issue of Google having to comply with federal law,” said Wayne Unger, assistant professor of law at Quinnipiac University School of Law.

That law is the Stored Communications Act. Simply put, the SCA prohibits a tech provider from disclosing our electronic communication unless there is an exception like a warrant.

In an email to Caroline, Google tells Caroline she needs to get an exception through a judge, writing, in part, “In order to proceed, a court order is required by U.S. law.”

NBC 5 Responds asked Google for comment and has not heard back directly.

Unger said, “It, in a way, provides the legal cover for Google in sharing or passing on or disclosing these kinds of digital assets.”

After NBC Connecticut Responds reached out to Google, it connected with Caroline and said it will continue to keep Michael’s account until she can get a court order. Caroline said she was still working to find a lawyer to take her case.

“There are no more memories I’m going to have with him. Those are the memories I have,” said Caroline.

MAPPING OUT DIGITAL LEGACIES

Planning digital legacies is part of the work Robyn Sechler does as an estate planner. Sechler works for GoodTrust, a website that offers estate planning tools and an online vault where users can organize digital assets and assign them to beneficiaries.

“We generally think about passing on your home or your money or your car, but we don’t think about our online life,” Sechler said.

Digital assets may be anything from photos and videos saved online to money sitting in peer-to-peer payment apps. What about transferable travel points? Financial and social media accounts?

“These things can be dealt with relatively easily, relatively cheaply, relatively quickly if you do them now when you're able to, as opposed to when you're incapacitated or you pass on,” said Chad Ruback, a North Texas-based appellate attorney.

Ruback said he recommends setting aside time to list digital assets and how to retrieve them in a will.

“Your loved one is going to be best off if he or she has one, access to your passwords. And two, a legal document giving your loved one the right to use those passwords,” Ruback explained.

You can also add trusted contacts to certain online accounts. Many sites, including Google, allow users to designate a “legacy contact” to manage their accounts when they die. A step to consider no matter your age.

You can find a link to Google’s inactive account manager here. Apple provides information on how to assign a legacy contact on this page. You can learn more about assigning a legacy contact for a Facebook account here. X (formerly Twitter) says in its online rules and policies, it is unable to provide account access to anyone regardless of their relationship. The policy said it does work with a user’s estate to help remove a deceased person’s account.

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