Digital afterlife: What happens to your data after you die?

When Vincent van Gogh died in 1890 without recognition, his legacy could have easily faded. But thanks to his sister-in-law, Johanna, who out of grief and conviction, preserved and promoted his works for generations of art enthusiasts. 

And when Kafka died, he had asked his friend Max Brod to burn all his manuscripts after his death. Brod, fortunately, disobeyed him. He edited and published those works instead, and the writer who wanted to disappear became one of the most discussed literary figures of his time. 

What we leave behind, and who we trust with it, matters a lot and can alter the story of our lives long after we are gone.

We often think of legacy as something tangible like paintings, letters, manuscripts, or maybe an old diary kept in a wooden drawer of our bedroom. But thanks to the internet and social media, we now have a digital extension of our life that we leave behind when we are gone. 

That life extension is scattered across the internet, from our inbox chats to photos, playlists, emails, passwords, search histories, and location logs we often forget to turn off.

We do not even realise how much of ourselves we are leaving behind, and unlike human memory, which forgives and forgets, our digital footprints are permanent. And as long as we are alive, we can manage, edit, hide, or erase it. But what happens when we cannot?

Digital legacy, in a sense, can be split into two parts: our digital assets and our digital presence.

Digital assets are the things we have purchased or created over the years, like e-books, music, podcasts, games, movies, domain names, blog archives, PayPal or Amazon accounts, even utility passwords. 

But here is the twist, most of them are not really ours. We do not own them in the way we own a book or a record; we only licence them for the span of our lives. Once we are gone, that licence might expire as well. 

Ownership rules vary from platform to platform, each with its own clauses neatly written, that no one reads. Some licences can be passed on, but you would only know it if you read the fine print before ticking that tiny box saying 'I agree to the terms and conditions'.

The other half of this inheritance, the more personal one, is your digital presence — everything that makes up your identity online, your photos, your posts, your emails, your words. 

Nuha, a university student who maintains a personal blog, has thought about it deeply. "I want to give access to my social media accounts to someone close to me," she says. "So they can read through them when I'm no longer alive. My blog is like a timeline of my thoughts, something that documents not just me, but also my time and surroundings. I'd like people to read it even after I'm gone. It's a part of who I am." 

A new kind of inheritance

When a person dies, their accounts do not just vanish. They linger in the hands of companies, each with its own policies for dealing with the dead. Facebook, for instance, allows profiles to be 'memorialised.' 

The page stays visible, but the 'Add Friend' button disappears, replaced by 'Remembering'. The account no longer shows up under 'People You May Know'. Users can also add a 'legacy contact', someone to manage the page, update photos, or write a pinned post after death without accessing the text. 

Some people find comfort in this. 

Sumantta Sarker, a research intern at BIGD has already thought it through. He says, "I've set my legacy contact, and I've given access to my Google and other accounts as well. These things matter, they're personal, but they're part of what I leave behind."

For others, it feels unnecessary. "What happens after my death doesn't matter much to me," says Sauvik Debnath, an associate producer at Sensemakers production house. "It's not that I haven't thought about it, but I don't really have anyone trustworthy enough to give access to. I'll probably just let Facebook memorialise the account and leave it at that."

Google offers a similar tool called Inactive Account Manager, which lets you select who can access your data if your account stays idle for too long. Apple and Amazon have their own versions too. But the process is often messy, requiring legal documents, verifications, and even death certificates.

Who does your data belong to?

While considering the legal issues, it is important to note that the law has not caught up yet, leaving many unresolved questions, like, "Is our digital data something we own, or something we are?"

If it is ownership, then it can be inherited. If it is identity, then maybe it should end with you. Most countries still do not have clear laws about it. 

For some, such questions are not just legal ones but more of a personal thing. 

Tanzina Sultana, a math instructor at Aloha Bangladesh, is one of those who are conscious about her online privacy even after death. 

"I don't want to be memorialised on Facebook or other platforms, nor do I want anyone else to have access to my data. What I hold within belongs to me. I want my digital data to be removed. I will probably plan in detail about it," she says. 

But how much of it can be really removed and how much belongs to the platforms we registered on without reading pages of agreement conditions, still remains in a grey zone.

Some states in the US have introduced acts such as the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA) that allow a trusted person to access a deceased person's digital assets. But these laws often clash with company policies that deny third-party access.

On top of two extremes, deletion and memorialisation, another trend is surfacing — digital resurrection. Tech companies are already experimenting with recreating your voice, your mannerisms, even your personality using artificial intelligence trained on your texts and posts. 

The idea is that your loved ones can still 'talk' to you after you are gone, a comforting thought until you imagine being trapped forever in a chat bot version of yourself, doomed to reply politely from the beyond.

In 2020, a South Korean documentary featured a grieving mother reuniting with her deceased daughter through virtual reality. It was tender, heartbreaking, but it triggered a fierce debate about voyeurism and exploitation. Does the right to privacy extend after death? Should grief have boundaries? Is it love to keep a digital version of someone, or is it refusal to let them go?

As our digital selves grow closer to our real ones, this question of the afterlife will only grow louder. Corporations, governments and individuals will need to adapt, legally, ethically and technologically.

For now, the advice is the most basic one: Make a plan. 

First list down your digital assets, passwords, monetised accounts, everything that might matter to someone after you. Then appoint trusted contacts on Facebook, Google, and Apple. It is better to write down your wishes, even if it feels odd. Because it is not about morbidity; it is about clarity. 

And maybe, in the future, we will handle this better, with laws that recognise digital inheritance, with tools that help families navigate it without endless forms. Maybe there will even be a new kind of will that decides what to keep, what to delete, and what to let rest.

Because knowingly or unknowingly, every like, every upload, every late-night search is a trace of our existence. So, traces we leave behind deserve more thought than we give them. After all, the internet does not forget, and someday, it will be the only one left remembering.