Slashdot Mirror
The Weird Rise of Cyber Funerals
Thanks to recent changes to privacy legislation in Europe and South Korea aimed at protecting the living, we now have more power than ever over our personal information -- even from beyond the grave. While this may have felt like a gimmick in the past, cyber funerals -- where our personal data is removed from the web posthumously -- are slowly becoming a viable option. From a report: Digital undertaking is the act of erasing and tidying up your public data after you die. It's a relatively new idea, but one that's already taking off in South Korea, according to the Korean Employment Information Service. Think of it as a ghoulish version of the European Union's right to be forgotten legislation. For most digital undertakers, the tricky task is to contact the social media companies, search engines or even media companies who publish personal information, and request for it to be deleted when their client dies. If that doesn't work, then companies -- be they in South Korea, the USA or UK -- can bury search engine results by flooding Google with new, conflicting data about the deceased. Santa Cruise, a company based in Seoul, was one of the first in South Korea to take on the task of digital undertaking. Founded in 2008, it was originally an agency for entertainment figures but now specializes in removing personal data from the internet for clients both dead and alive. The company's scope includes digital undertaking and even "reputation management" for those who have been victims of revenge porn.
In case of death, delete my browser history.
I can see the point of locking social accounts so nothing new can be posted, but why go to all this work to try to erase all mentions of the person?
The only case the article really mentions is "spent convictions". Surely the mention of a conviction is more harmful to a person while they're living than once they're dead, so if they didn't try to get it removed while alive, what's the point?
will enact this right to be forgotten nonsense.
It's one thing to protect that private info never meant to be released (ie someone secretly webcamming a man or woman jerking off), but this retraction of intentionally public info is vile and orwellian.
Social media has all this information on people and obituaries have a lot too. Just think what one could do with all that information and pose as the dead guy. You'll know his mother's maiden name, SSN, DOB, addresses, relatives, ....
And one could wreak havoc with the living relatives too.
Posing as dead guy: "I'd like to close the joint account with my wife. Send all the money to this address. Identify myself? Easily. Here ya go!"
This particular fad is diametrically opposed to the previously existing fad of converting social media accounts of the deceased into permanent memorials, like digital gravestones.
Interestingly, more people are cremated than interred in the United States, at 50.2%, and the percentage has been creeping upward for years. Assuming the majority of cremations are voluntary rather than forced by financial necessity, it seems like these folks have found a growth business. At present, the majority of people prefer to have themselves erased rather than memorialized.
Looks like the Internet isn't going to make it easier to be a historian after all. History is more than famous people.