Introduced in January, the bill would protect an individual’s digital heritage legacy.

In the event of the death of a loved one, it is difficult to gain access to these digital devices and information. To change this, British MP Ian Paisley recently tabled a bill in Parliament. I call Digital devices (access for next of kin)o “Digital devices (access for close relatives)”, its objective is to grant a right of access to the digital devices of a deceased or incapacitated person to their close relatives. “My bill would create a law where the default would be that family members of a deceased or incapacitated person would automatically have access to content on digital platforms held in the deceased person’s name on their digital devices.”explained Ian Paisley during the presentation.

The deputy sees his bill as a means to protect an individual’s digital heritage legacy when many people mistakenly think they own their online content. “Many forget to give access to their content in their will or to share their passwords and access codes with their loved ones”.

Make devices easy to access

Ian Paisley also seeks to prevent relatives from having to take legal action against technology platforms and companies to gain access to a deceased person’s devices and digital content. Each company has different policies regarding the death of an individual. Apple for example, it requests legal documents, such as a death certificate or court order, which it verifies before authorizing someone to operate a deceased customer’s account. In addition, the data of the latter can be lost due to the rules of the American giant in terms of blocking. On its site, the American giant explains that you cannot disable the passcode of a locked device without erasing its data.

The bill introduced in Parliament is supposed to remedy these kinds of problems by imposing “Technology companies are in charge of unlocking the devices of loved ones who do not have the keys of the devices left by the deceased”as MP Ian Paisley explained.