Slashdot Mirror
Dead? Hope You Left Someone Your Passwords
A reader writes "Looks like if you die, Yahoo won't grant access to family members. I know I've enjoyed reading my grandfather's letters from WWII, this could be a huge loss of history if other ISP's have the same policy." MJK points out that Slashdot has explored the notion of what happens to your data after you die.
My family members are welcome to keep all the emails I've sent them. But my personal mail? That'd incriminate way too many people still living...
don't keep anything you want to pass on stored on Yahoo! Next problem?
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
My data is my data, and unless I stated otherwise in my will, it dies with me.
Also, if my relatives would have something to see in my email, I would let them read it.
After all the reason you use the yahoo mail is privacy.
Why should my privacy die with me ? (sounds funny, though)
I think keeping the contents private is prudent.
It is up to you to archive your emails and other e-stuff in a a spot that it can be found, if indeed you really want it found after you are "gone".
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Do privacy rights still apply? Let us say that you die in a car accident, should your medical records and all of your personal information be available to family members? Can this not, at some point be abused by providing fake information in order to gain access to an account? If I want my family members to have access to something, then I will either tell them now, or have that data in my will or other document to be distributed by my legal representative upon my death.
If this family wants to keep the messages, then they should save them from their side of the chain. I think Yahoo is in the right in that they should not be made to give out password to those that do not control the account. They would have to deal with the expense of handling a lot of requests if even a single exception was acknowledged.
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
Did he provide a copy of the death certificate? How do you know who it was or wasn't?
What you did was wrong, and if it wasn't illegal, it should be.
If you didn't want it on your concience, you should've passed the call up the chain of command to someone with more integrity.
I've got a bunch of names and social security numbers, and your customer's email, if not profitable for me, should at least be amusing.
Oh, and if I could have your direct extension too, that would be nice.
In short, you exposed all the users of your ISP to fraud by allowing anyone who called you with a sob story and some previously compramised data account access they shouldn't have. But hey, as long as your CONSCIENCE feels good....
paintball
They die. Encrypted, personal and not for others, whether I die or not. Quite frankly, those I know and love should have more than enough without my data. And for the great posterity, I imagine that either a) There's more than enough people who didn't keep their data private or b) I've gotten important enough to actually set up some sort of dead man's switch in my will.
It is not like this is just online. Many places in real life would also suddenly find me "missing", yet never actually go as far as to figure out what happened. Both on- and offline, those that are important enough to know would know. That'll do.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
This actually happened to our family this past August. My 19 year-old sister died in a car accident. I think my mother wanted access to her email to spread the news to her friends since she was very active on the Internet and had international friends. My mother had purely altruistic motives. My sister had actually told my mother her password, but because of the trauma of the situation, my mother couldn't remember. My mother ended up remembering it a few days later when she could think clearly. I didn't realize it until it happened, but when your sister dies, you want people who loved her to know. There's this need to want people to know what happened, no matter how traumatic. We still can't reach one of her old friends. I understand the privacy issue, and I treasure my online privacy too, but I agree with other Slashdotters...when you're dead you're dead and the secrets you leave behind don't matter much anymore. There's not much use for it there. But if there's a use for the family, perhaps looking for things to hold on to even for momentary comfort, I think that's the right thing to do. I think the real issue is ownership. Yahoo owns the servers, and thus our web-based e-mail, no? When in that case, the analogy of say my father dying and me inheriting his car wouldn't work with e-mail since e-mail isn't owned like a car.
I support Yahoo's stance in this matter. While he's dead and really doesn't have a care in the world, because nothing about him besides a pile of flesh exists..
Out of respect, what if there were things he never wanted them to know? What if he was gay and having an internet relationship with some man, and his parents were anti-gay? They would then be left thinking they never knew their own son, and all of this crap.
If you want people to have access to that sort of thing, leave them access. Put your passwords in a safe or something if you MUST write them down.
Yahoo and others should not be giving access to an individuals person email, dead or alive. I don't care if the family presents a death certificate or not. You should have a reasonable expectation of privacy and deceny even after death. Let your personal life die with you.
The email or other electronic records are property just as paper letters are. By default, you don't have privacy in death as your paper letters are inherited by someone unless you leave provisions in your will for them to be destroyed. If you are a famous person, your person letters are likely valuable property.
I don't see why email should be considered any different. Yahoo's position really is that your email is not personal property. They "own" in the sense of controlling the property while it's on their servers. I don't think Yahoo's objection is really about privacy. They don't want your email to be considered property because they could then be sued when they accidently lose it, not to mention the administrative costs of dealing with probate transfers. If this was really about privacy, they could give make the disposition at death user controllable when the account is created.
I doubt this issue will be fully decided by the courts until some famous author dies and the only copy of their unpublished work in on some server somewhere and worth a lot money. Then the family will sue for access to the valuable property which they've rightly inherited through the will and the courts will be forced to decide whether ISPs can destroy property on somebody's death.