Your online legacy is one that doesn’t
reveal its secrets without a fight, and we all need to think about this before
it’s too late. Let’s start with bank account(s). How do you log into them? Is
it just a username and a password? Or is it a passkey? Does it then advance to
another authentication method? Does it send a text? To your mobile? Can other
family members get into your mobile? Is your mobile unlocked with your face?
What is the backup option – an unlock PIN? Who knows? Maybe the secondary
authentication method sends a code to an email account. Which one? Could
someone get into that email and get the code? What if the secondary
authentication for the bank account uses a third-party authentication app, like
DUO, or Google Authenticator? How would anyone know which one to use?
That was just banking! Now imagine this
fiasco with many different types of accounts. Utilities, online shopping,
online document and picture storage, banking, health sites, government sites
for digital ID and pensions etc., insurance, social media, streaming accounts,
mobile accounts, the list goes on. I try to do myself a favour and those that
survive me by storing all my login details in a password manager. We only need
to unlock the vault, and pretty much everything is in there. But what if it
isn’t?
How many email accounts do you have? Your
family would need to know they exist and how to get into them. Imagine if a
family member has unknown email accounts and there’s no record of them
anywhere. Now imagine that this secret account is what some other accounts use
to verify logins. Every account is a different puzzle, with different
verification, different email, different recovery path, different security
questions. And every puzzle leads to another puzzle behind it.
Then there’s the security questions. Maybe
one of the questions is “What was the name of your first pet?” Maybe my family
members know that it was “Spot.” But what if they don’t? What if I’m one of
those people who knows it’s not a great idea to answer those questions
truthfully and instead wrote “Thunderbird.” Is there any way anyone else could
figure that out?
There’s more. Imagine that a month after
you pass a recurring charge keeps appearing on the credit card. Your family is
wondering, “What is this? What is the company?” Good luck finding out. How are
they going to cancel it if they don’t know what email it’s attached to or the
login credentials?
Then comes a gut punch. Ninety days after
the deceased has passed, one of their email accounts is deleted. Permanently.
Inactivity. Nobody knew the account existed until it was already gone. Whatever
was connected to that account, gone. Nobody will ever know what was lost.
Maybe you have all your account details
written somewhere. Is everything up to date? Is anything missing? Could your
family get into every account? This is what you need to plan for now, while you
still know the paths to get into everything.
Karl Plesz
Your Productivity Guru
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