Will Your Facebook Page and Google Photos Outlive You? New clinic helps preserve digital life after death

From family photos stored in the cloud to social media posts that catalog life’s most important moments, to the music, art and stories we create and share online, the digital world is saturated with representations of who we are.

What happens to that digital legacy after we die, and how do we manage the virtual heirlooms that our loved ones leave behind?

CU Boulder’s new Digital Legacy Clinic has answers.

“Whether you are planning for your own death or perhaps you have lost a loved one and are dealing with their digital affairs, it can be an overwhelming process at an already very difficult time of life,” says clinic founder Jed Brubaker. associate professor of Information Science.

“What to do and how to do it is not always clear and unfortunately most technology platforms don’t have systems in place to help you. That’s where we step in.”

The first clinic of its kind, launched this month, works similarly to a pro-bono law clinic, with specially trained computer science students providing free advice and problem solving to the public.

As Brubaker notes, the average Internet user has a whopping 191 accounts, from Google drives chock full of treasured snapshots to Pinterest accounts with favorite recipes and Ancestry.com accounts that trace family trees back generations.

Yet, according to a forthcoming paper from his lab, only 13% of platforms have features expressly designed to meet the end-of-life needs of their users.

“Companies are thinking about designs for all different aspects of our lives, from birthdays to wedding anniversaries,” he said. “But they may have overlooked the most profound of all: the end of those lives.”

Why you need a plan

In fifteen years of research into what he calls “the digital afterlife,” Brubaker has discovered a slew of heartbreaking reasons why it’s worth creating an end-of-life plan for our data. Facebook pages, which can’t be accessed by anyone other than their creator, can linger long after that person has died, leaving behind algorithms that send creepy birthday notifications or “reminders” to grieving loved ones.

Family members without a password often encounter obstacles when trying to access photos or videos from the deceased’s Google or iCloud storage accounts.

Original art, music, stories or professional work shared via digital platforms or personal websites can be deleted and lost forever if not taken into account.

And the sheer volume of data can be daunting for those tasked with sorting through it after someone dies.

“If grandma dies and you have to search her attic, at least you know where the attic is, you know where the key is and you know where the attic ends,” Brubaker said. “When it comes to our digital spaces, they are almost infinite. We are putting more and more things into them and while some of it matters, some of it doesn’t.”

Because tech companies naturally tend to have minimalist customer service departments, surviving family members are often faced with endless wait times and unanswered messages, further adding to their grief.

“Our analysis found that most platforms provide minimal functional support and that many end-of-life needs are impossible to meet or rely on unapproved solutions,” said Dylan Thomas Doyle, a former hospital chaplain who holds a Ph. D. candidate and clinic service provider.

Working on the solutions

After years of studying such problems, Brubaker turned to a colleague a few years ago and wondered aloud if there was an organization that helped people through this process.

“As I was saying it, it hit me: Oh. We are that group. We have to create this.”

He went to work developing a new class in which computer science students (a mix of technology and behavioral sciences) helped build the clinic from the ground up.

To prepare for the launch, they completed sensitivity training, consulted with lawyers and delved into the technical complexities of dozens of platforms. They have also handled several dozen cases.

In one, they helped a grieving widow maintain her late husband’s blog about his long battle with cancer. In another case, they helped a mother who lost her daughter to suicide stay connected to her memorialized Facebook account after a technical glitch knocked her out.

“It was a really powerful experience to hear their stories and be able to help them,” said graduate student Daniel Sullivan.

Classmate Rory O’Flynn, an artist, said her participation in the clinic has made her think about how she would like her own legacy to be preserved.

Would she like her Instagram profile to be memorialized so her friends can visit it? Who in her family would get the password to access her sketches?

“The younger generation in particular has this perception of the internet as kind of the whole world. We leave all these digital footprints behind, but the average citizen doesn’t think about this at all.”

Love letters on your phone

Brubaker emphasized that the clinic does not provide advice on financial matters, such as how to access bank accounts or retirement funds. Fortunately, the designers of these systems have thought about what happens after someone dies, and policies and laws are in place to ensure end-of-life needs are met, he said.

In a sense, the personal stories, family histories and cultural heritage embedded in our virtual heirlooms are even more valuable than material objects, he said.

He said he hopes his research and the new clinic will inspire tech companies to do more to preserve these digital treasures.

“A hundred years from now, I hope no one will care what my bank account number was. But those text messages – like modern love letters – or Instagram posts congratulating you on your marriage. That matters. It would be a tragedy if everyone that’s lost. We’re here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Offered by the University of Colorado Boulder