The Reality Families Face
When someone is no longer here, their digital life doesn’t end. It just becomes inaccessible.
Social media profiles stay active — sometimes receiving notifications, sometimes sitting there as a presence nobody is managing. Email accounts remain live, receiving messages that will never be read. Subscription services keep charging until someone with the right access cancels each one.
Without a record of what accounts existed, what the credentials were, and what the person would have wanted to happen, every account becomes a separate investigation. Multiply that across 100-plus online accounts, and the picture is clear: the digital component of settling someone’s affairs is enormous, and it’s almost never planned for.
What Each Platform Actually Does
Different platforms have different policies — and most people have no idea what they are.
Facebook and Instagram allow accounts to be memorialised or deleted. Meta requires proof and relationship before acting. Without someone with the right access or legal standing, the account simply continues.
Google provides an Inactive Account Manager to designate what happens if an account becomes inactive. Most people have never used it. Apple’s Digital Legacy program allows you to designate access in advance — without it, Apple requires a court order.
Superannuation is separate from your personal affairs and not covered by your Will. Your fund distributes your balance according to your beneficiary nominations. Unclaimed superannuation balances in Australia run into billions — much of it from accounts with unclear or missing nominations.
The Questions Worth Answering Now
None of these are hard questions. They’re practical ones. Answering them now means the people you love won’t have to guess.
What would you like to happen to your social media accounts — memorialised, transferred, or closed? Are there photos or digital files that matter and should be preserved before an account is shut down? What subscriptions are running? Who should have access to your cloud storage? Where are your passwords — and is there someone who could find them if they needed to?
LifeReady’s Digital Vault lets you document all of this in one encrypted location. Use Legacy Plans to ensure the right people have access when the time comes, and Emergency Scenarios to make specific records available for situations that fall short of that.
A Practical Starting Point
You don’t need to resolve everything at once. Start with the Digital Life section of the LifeReady Checklist: email accounts, digital credentials, cloud storage, streaming services, social media, banking and trading platforms.
Add credentials as you find them. Note your preferences for each account. Make sure at least one Trusted Party knows this information exists and how to access it. The goal isn’t a perfect plan — it’s enough of a plan that your family isn’t starting from nothing.
Your digital life is already a kind of legacy — whether you’ve planned it or not. The question is whether it’s organised enough to help the people you love.
→ Download the LifeReady Checklist at lifeready.io/lifeready_checklist
→ Start your Digital Vault for free at app.lifeready.io/signup