“Where there is a (digital) Will, there is a way”: Have you willed your digital assets?

We live in an era of digital technology, wherein computer resource are proliferating throughout modern society and permitting information to be created, stored, processed and communicated in ways that are unprecedented. Many of us run website's, blog's and social sites and hold mail accounts and online memberships of many paid services, which is being used as a comprehensive digital archive accumulating our documents, correspondence, contents, photographs/pictures, video clips and confidential information's. Some of us even might have bought domain names, web hosting space and ASP services. They may be valuable, heritable, or simply embarrassing, but unfortunately, it just doesn't occur to us to envisage as to what will be the fate of digital assets is going to become in the event of our demise or is that we are not aware that we can hand down this information to family members or trusted ones.

So what will happen to all your digital assets and digital memories and confidential data information like online bank account details, pension and saving detail, valuable e-mail s stored online in the unfortunate event of one's death? Some digital data may even have the possibility of being converted into money and/or may be of evidentiary value and important to your family, more so, some digital material do provide memories of people, times and places which are more personal.

Needless to say, your digital assets including e-mail accounts containing valuable information gets incinerated, frozen and inactive upon your death and will disappear into the aether.

Take the case of the US Marine solider Justin Ellsworth who was killed in action late last year in Iraq, His grieving father's efforts to preserve his son digital legacy almost became uncertain, when his request to access to the marine soldier's Yahoo e-mail account was denied due to the company's policies, which clearly state that survivors have no rights to e-mail accounts of the deceased. E-mail was the source Justin was using to communicate with his family from the front lines. Marine soldier father was certain that images of the war and correspondences were well documented in his son's e-mail account. "I want to be able to remember him in his words, I know he thought he was doing what he needed to do. I want to have that for the future' pleaded John Justin's father. "It's the last thing I have of my son".

Not every Internet service provider have rules or policies for dealing with the deceased users account, As a general practice the online accounts and e-mail account get deactivated and removed if found dormant, as per the policy of the service provider, and rightly so it is in consonance with the piracy policy that e-mail account do not have No Right of Survivorship and is non-transferable and the account get terminated upon your death.

Though some Internet service provider may allow access to e-mail in form of prints out or CD's of the e-mail s upon request and furnishing proof that the user has indeed passed away, ,and submitting documents proving the relationship that the person wanting to access to the account is next of the kin, and after necessary investigation may, Other may turn over an account to family members only after they go through the courts to verify their identity and relationship to the deceased. Any ways after less than year inactivity the account is deleted completely.

In Marine soldier's case, the father of the solider had to battle it out in the Court to get access to his son e-mail account, Complying with a the Court order, Yahoo agreed to give the family of a US Marine killed in Iraq access to the soldier's e-mail and to provide the family with the CD of his e-mail . One can avoid all these problems by creating a digital will.

So what is Digital Will?

Digital Will is similar to your regular 'Will' and/or can be a part of your regular 'Wil'l' to include your digital assets. It make reference to file where user name and personal passwords to your e-mail account and other online digital information can be accessed, and also include list of digital material you have created, assigning someone you trust to deal with your e-mail account or digital material and/or your wishes about what you want to happen to the digital material you have created or the e-mail accounts in the event of your death.

As technologies move so quickly, the law has some catching up to do.

The concept of 'Digital Will', does not figure in any statute, and as there is no statue which allows to succeed to digital assets of the deceased by the next of the kin of the person after his death It is yet to be a definitive as to whether digital assets including e-mail it is an extension of the deceased's estate at the time of his death for right of survivorship, But that does not prohibits one from disposing his digital assets by way of "Will". Like any other "Testamentary Will", "Digital Will", helps a person to makes disposition of his digital assets to take effect after his death. Making a 'Will' is a very important component of one's wishes regarding the disposal of his or her estate to take effect after death will therefore helps ensure your wishes are carried out, and can make things simpler and easier for your heirs.

In Indian 'Law on Will' is governed by The Indian Succession Act, 1925, wherein a 'Will', has been defined as, "A legal declaration of the intention of the testator, with respect to his property which he desires to be carried into effect after his death."

So for a 'Will', to become effective, it must be executed by a person legally competent to make it, it must be signed and attested, as required by law and the declaration should relate to disposition of the property of the person making the "Will". (Though 'Property' is not defined under the law, it includes both movable and immovable and is wide enough to cover both tangible and intangible assets) and It needs to be properly signed and attested.
Registration is not compulsory, but advisable.

How to go about it? Make an encrypted file, with list of inventories of all you digital assets, with username and password to access the account, secure the file preferably offline, then draw a "Will", with appropriate authority and with user access to the encrypted file and instructions to person or persons with definite instructions how you would like to go about or/and who will inherit and have access to online assets, and have the properly signed and attested. You can deposit it with the registrar in your area, for proper and safe custody or with your lawyer or any trusted person as you prefer.

So if you have valuable digital materials, e-mail communication worth protecting you want to leave behind in the future for your successors and loved ones to have access to your personal private mails and other digital archives/materials, it is suggested that you make a "Digital Will".

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