Why your online passwords can outlive you
A new company is offering a service to pass on your Internet passwords to next of kin after your death. It’s a creative solution to a genuine problem, but the pricing makes it extremely unlikely to succeed.
Legacy Locker aims to solve the problem of people dying and their loved ones being unable to access their online accounts and services without having their passwords. In some cases this can be awkward: what happens to your Facebook account after you die?
In other cases, there may be a legal need to access an account, for example to get to emails which aren’t stored on a computer such as those in a Gmail or Hotmail account. And there are also cases where somebody dies leaving a tidy wedge of cash in a PayPal account which the next of kin might need in a hurry.
Many sites will give access to next of kin after the account holder’s death, but it can be a long process dealing with each individual site. Legacy Locker’s idea is extremely simple: users add all the passwords and other account details they want protected and name at least two beneficiaries. (Each beneficiary can be set up to get details for different accounts.) If the user dies, the firm hands over the details once they get independent notification from two beneficiaries plus a copy of the death certificate.
Of course, there are some obvious concerns. Using the service sounds like a major hassle given how many online accounts most people have, particularly if they follow the good security practices of changing passwords regularly. And no matter how respectable and professional Legacy Locker maybe, it will only take one security breach for all hell to break loose. Indeed, some Web sites may even consider it a breach of your membership conditions to hand over your password to a third party such as this.
But the biggest problem is the cost. The service costs $30 a year or $300 for a ‘lifetime’ service (an unfortunate name given that the service needs to extend past this period). It seems a pretty tough sell for individuals, meaning the firm will probably have to concentrate on pitching the scheme to real estate and will planners to resell as part of their own packages of services.
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March 10th, 2009
John, thanks for the writeup. In fact your summary at the end is exactly spot-on – our entire business is predicated around the estate planner and legal industries. With over 25,000 estate planners in the US serving 12.5 million existing customers (and 900,000 new ones every year), we have quite a sizable market to work with. Glad you like the concept, and hope that those stats help clear up our business model for you.
-Jeremy