Long Island Digital Asset Planning Attorney

These assets include the following:

• Social Networking sites: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn
• Email Accounts: Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo!, Microsoft Outlook
• Online Financial or Brokerage Accounts
• Online Bank Accounts: E-Trade, ING, ScottTrade, Fidelity
• Photo-sharing Sites: Picassa, Kodak Gallery, Snapfish, Flicker
• Personal or professional Blogs

Estate Planning in the Digital Age

The first step to creating a comprehensive digital estate plan is to take inventory of all of your online accounts, complete with passwords and usernames. You should then place that information in a secure place, such as a home safe or an on-line safe.

After you have completed these tasks, you should select a fiduciary. Provide your fiduciary with your information as well as instructions for what to do with your digital assets after your passing. Currently, executors, agents, guardians, and beneficiaries do not have explicit legal access to a deceased loved one's digital assets.

If you have particular privacy concerns, you should keep the list of usernames in a separate place from the passwords. You can also have your executor delete all confidential or sensitive information.

You may have a license to use a particular web resource or service. These licenses are generally not transferrable, but should still be discussed with your fiduciary.

The Importance of a Modern Estate Plan

Although almost everyone has digital assets, there are few laws to determine the future of these accounts after the death of their creator. This lack of government control has far-reaching effects, including an increased risk of postmortem identity theft as hackers use unmonitored accounts.

Additionally, if you are a computer programmer, graphic artist, photographer, writer or musician, you may have particularly valuable data to protect. Creating an estate plan prepared for the digital age can help safeguard your assets and the future of your loved ones.