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Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. Many people today also have a life online. But what happens when someone dies?
Think ahead
It is important to arrange things properly for when you die. Most people do think about that. How would you prefer to have your funeral? Who does the inheritance go to? Who might handle the financial affairs?
But now that we spend part of our lives on the internet with social media, it’s also wise to think about how to handle it properly. If no one intervenes after the death, all of someone’s social media accounts will continue to exist and remain active. That doesn’t just mean that your personal information and photos will remain on the internet for years to come. Relatives also regularly receive messages and reactions from those social media via e-mail or on their own social media. This can be very confronting and painful at times. That is why it is also important to agree or record something about what should happen to your social media accounts when you are no longer there. That can be done in different ways.
Manage
There is no immediate need to delete all social media accounts as soon as possible. Some people choose to keep their social media active for a certain period after their death and, for example, have a self-written farewell message posted for family, friends and other visitors. In this way, people who are further away are also informed of the death.
Where in the past paper newspapers were a good way to give notice through an obituary, nowadays there are far fewer people who are reached that way. Also, not everyone is in the address book of the deceased, so that they can receive a card personally. A temporary message on the social media of the deceased is therefore a good, and nowadays quite normal, way to inform, for example, friends and colleagues from the past.
commemorate
Another option with certain social media is to have your page turned into a memorial page on the internet. This is possible with Facebook, for example. Your page will then receive a separate in memoriam status. No more messages can be posted and no more automatic messages are sent by mail. Also, the deceased is no longer automatically suggested as a possible friend to other Facebook members. As an administrator, you also decide who can see the page in the settings.
Only a designated person can manage a memorial page. A copy of the death certificate is required to apply for memorial status.
For example, you can commemorate request at Facebook and with Instagram.
Share your account information
The easiest way to manage your social media for later is to share your social media account information with someone you trust. You agree with that person what you want to happen after you die. If someone can log into your social media accounts with your username or email address and password, it’s a lot easier to cancel those accounts. It is also possible to have active memorial pages managed in this way, where, for example, visitors are allowed to post messages and the administrator can occasionally post reminders in the form of photos and texts. Closing accounts with the login details is usually easier than if you don’t have one. The latter is possible, but requires more work (see Canceling social media without account details).
All social media have an option on their website or in their app that allows you to cancel an account. Where it is exactly depends on the social medium. If you search for a term such as cancel, delete, cancel or terminate via the search box or the Help function of the social medium, you will usually find the instructions for this.
Another possibility is to search the internet for a term such as cancel, delete, cancel or terminate in combination with the name of the social medium. For example: Delete Instagram. Keep in mind that confirmation by e-mail is sometimes requested, so that you must also have access to the (web) mail of the deceased.
There is a catch when terminating an account with Facebook. That seems easy to do via the settings, but if you choose to deactivate, the result is that an account is put into sleep mode. Nothing else happens to it, but it just continues to exist in the background. To really delete a Facebook account, you have to take a few steps further. You can read how to do that here >>
Login details in the vault
A less well-known option for passing on your account information is online safes that certain funeral insurance companies offer. Your login details are stored securely here. After death, the stored account information is passed on to the next of kin by your funeral insurance company.
You can also include your social media data with the information about your inheritance when drawing up a will. These methods are therefore more official than giving your account data to someone yourself, but have the disadvantage that it is often forgotten to pass on changes to the account data, such as a different password. As a result, it becomes a lot more difficult to get into social media. If the designated next of kin does have access to the e-mail account, they can in any case still request a new password to be able to log in after all.
Of course, using an online password vault for your login details and passing on the access details to a trusted person is also an option. For more about online password vaults, see >>
Cancel social media without account details
What can you do if someone has passed away but has left no account information? You might think that you can’t arrange much more, but luckily the companies behind social media have taken this into account. Every social medium has its own procedure for closing an account of someone who has passed away.
In any case, you need a copy of the death certificate, such as, for example, when canceling a telephone or internet subscription. Also, by default, you must be a close relative or the executor to make a valid request.
Keep in mind that canceling a social media account in this way can take a few weeks, because it concerns international companies that receive requests from all over the world for account deletion.
Below you can see an overview of well-known social media and the links to the form or instructions with which you can request the deletion of an account. This option can also often come in handy if someone is no longer able to manage their social media accounts for medical reasons. You can indicate this with the application.
Cancel Google (Google+, Gmail, YouTube) account >>
Canceling a schoolbank account: send an e-mail with the request to Schoolbank via service@schoolbank.nl
If the deceased had an account on other social media, go to the website of the relevant social media and search for delete account or remove account. You can also search via the Help function. Can’t find any information? Please contact the company behind the social medium via the contact details on the website.