In a survey by Rackspace of 2,000 adults, almost a third of people have assets online they will include in their will and 11% have already done so. 1 in 4 people already have more than £200 of digital assets protected by passwords. A quarter said they had “special photos” stored online, one in 10 had treasured videos and the same number kept sentimental emails from loved ones. So our digital treasures are growing rapidly and so is our digital iheritance. So should I update my will?
Without the passwords to such digital treasures being included in wills, billions of pounds’ worth of films, music and pictures stored in “cloud” services such as Hotmail, Facebook, iCloud and Flickr would be lost.
[quote align=”left”] ‘The cloud is increasingly becoming part of our everyday work and personal lives. ‘With an estimated £2.3billion invested in digital treasures, it’s imperative that people consider the associated security and legacy implications.’ [/quote]So have you included your digital treasures in your Will?
As a nation Britons already have a £2.3bn ‘digital inheritance’ lined up and this is set to increase considerably. This could include bank accounts, music services, videos, electronic subscriptions, paypal accounts, photos’s and more. So it makes sense to let your loved ones know where they can find your online passwords so that the digital items that you wish to bequeath can be accessed by the executors handling the estate. For security reasons it is not recommended to include Internet passwords in the will itself, but it is important to include the digital items you wish to pass on.
If you already have a will then it is relatively straight forward to update it or add a codicil so all your digital assets are properly included and accounted for when you pass away.
If you don’t have a will in place then our advice is get one in place as soon as possible with the help of specialist will writing solicitors and avoid the nightmare it causes for your family left behind.
