it's your legacy... Entrustet HIWI Blog

Earlier this week, Mark Zuckerburg posted a note on Facebook announcing that users would be able to download their profile data to their hard drives whenever they wanted.  After jumping through some security hoops, you can request a zip file of all of your profile data.  We still don’t know what kind of format the data will be in, but it allows you to download all of your Facebook photos, updates, friends and the rest of your profile data.

It’s a big step for two reasons.  First, it shows that Facebook is taking privacy and data portability concerns much more seriously than they previously had.  Second, it paves the way for Facebook users to use their Facebook data other places than on Facebook’s fairly closed network.  Evan Caroll at the Digital Beyond has a great post that goes into more detail if you’d like an in depth overview the history behind Facebook data portability.

At Entrustet, we’re excited that Facebook is allowing personal data downloads because it is another sign that the data you create online is worthwhile and personally important.  We think it is one of the first steps toward allowing people to control their online data on social networks.  While it is still a ways off, Facebook profile data downloads could become parts of online memorials like 1000 memories, Legacy.com and others that are adding a new online dimension to the grieving process.

In a recent Mashable article called 7 resources for handling digital life after death, a commenter named Coreytess told a story about a young boy who passed away.  His family used his digital presence to create a comforting memorial at the funeral:

A young boy i know died in the tornado that destroyed his school… they used his MySpace “About Me” as his prologue for the memorial. It was so amazing and touching…

So much of what we create is now online.  Our legacies are digital and people can remember us for what we’ve done online.  This is both good and bad.  Your digital assets like you Myspace, Facebook or blog can be used for good, just like in the story from the Mashable comments, but your digital assets can also be used for bad.  Maybe you want people to remember you for who you were while you were alive, not for what was in your Facebook account.  Or maybe you’re like me and you’d like people to remember you online for your blog and not for your Facebook or Twitter.

Facebook should implement settings that allows users to decide which parts, if any, of their profiles should be deleted when they die.  Facebook should also add the ability to transfer accounts and data to an heir.  Now that you can download your own data while you are alive, shouldn’t you be able to nominate someone to download specific parts of your Facebook profile, like your digital photos, when you pass away?

There’s a few reasons why Facebook doesn’t do this yet.  First, they have no idea when their users die.  Second, they have no method to make sure that users are in fact dead.  (Our corporate partner program does this for companies, look for an announcement tomorrow).  There have been multiple instances where people have faked their friends deaths to free their Facebook profile.  Third, Facebook currently only allows you to memorialize your profile.  If you’d like your account deleted when you die, you’d need to give your survivors access so they can manually delete your account.  I’ve given my brother access to my Facebook via my Entrustet account so that when I pass away (hopefully not for 80+ years) my Facebook will be deleted.

If you’d like to enable your heirs to either delete your profile when you pass away, or download important data that you’d like preserved, you need to transfer your account to an heir and put a plan in place before you pass away.  You can get started for free on Entrustet.

Tags:

digital death · Facebook · facebook death · facebook death policy · social networks and death · the digital beyond