Data After Death: Australian User Preferences and Future Solutions to Protect Posthumous User Data

The digital footprints of today’s internet-active individuals are a testament to their lives, and have the potential become digital legacies once they pass on. Future descendants of those alive today will greatly appreciate the unprecedented insight into the lives of their long-since deceased ancestors, but this can only occur if today we have a process for data preservation and handover after death. Many prominent online platforms offer nebulous or altogether absent policies regarding posthumous data handling, and despite recent advances it is currently unclear who the average Australian would like their data to be managed after their death (i.e., social media platforms, a trusted individual, or another digital executor). While at present the management of deceased accounts is largely performed by the platform (e.g., Facebook), it is conceivable that many Australians may not trust such platforms to do so with integrity. This study aims to further the academic conversation around posthumous data by delving deeper into the preferences of the Australian Public regarding the management of their data after death, ultimately to inform future development of research programs and industry solutions. A survey of 1020 Australians revealed that most desired a level of control over how their data is managed after death. Australians currently prefer to entrust the management of their data to a trusted close individual or a third-party software that they can administrate themselves. As expected, social media companies ranked low regarding both trust and convenience to manage data after death. Furthermore, we found that the more active internet users have stronger desire for control over their data after death, as did people with children and those with greater levels of formal education. Unexpectedly, marital status, age, and gender did not predict preferences for posthumous data control. Future research focus should be to conceptualise and develop a third-party solution that enables these preferences to be realised. Such a solution could interface with the major online vendors (social media, cloud hosting etc.) to action the deceased’s will – erasing select data, while sharing other data with selected individuals.