SPECIAL REPORT: Safeguarding your ‘Digital Afterlife’

If you were to die suddenly, would your loved ones be able to manage your bank accounts? What about your social media accounts?

In the digital world you live forever and you need to take steps to protect your “digital afterlife.”

John Huennecke, a former El Paso Times Editor, battled Crohn’s disease for more than a decade. Huennecke, 60, died suddenly in February from a blood clot in his lung.

His daughter, Anneliese, told ABC-7 Huennecke was very active on social media even after his career at the Times came to an end.

“He was a hip dad, he wanted to be a part of everything. He had Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram,” Anneliese said.

Before his death, Huennecke’s wife, Becky, suggested they transition their regular Facebook pages into a “Legacy Account,” which allows a designated heir to take over your page following your death.

“It was a new fad and I wanted to take advantage of it,” Becky said. Her husband declined, saying “we’re going to live a long, long time, so I’m going to do it later.”

Becky said she never had the chance to say goodbye to her husband. “I didn’t know what he wanted for his funeral. We never had that talk. It’s important that couples have it,” she said.

John and Becky didn’t talk about death, but they talked about other important things, like money. They knew each other’s pin numbers and shared their passwords.

“We had no secrets,” Becky said. She is still using John’s account to keep his memory alive.

Becky said she likes the Facebook feature that reminds you of past posts. “I get to see how he wrote,” she said, “It helps me refresh my memories and memories are what keep you going because to me love never dies.”

So how does your digital life end? The answer is complicated and your family could end up in probate court.

Becky and John didn’t have any secrets, but many couples do and some believe they can take their secrets to the grave.

“Once you pass away, assuming nobody has your password, it will stay out there forever,” Patricia Chew, the judge of Probate Court No. 1, said.

Worse yet, other people could access your accounts after you die.

“With a letter of administration you can get into anything the deceased individual could get into,” Eduardo Gamboa, the judge of Probate Court No. 2, said, “So you can hire somebody to go in and look for the passwords to extract or erase information.”

Chew and Gamboa suggest you plan ahead with an updated will registered at the courthouse. They also recommend you share your passwords with someone you trust.

Pictures and comments can say a lot about you even after you’re six feet under.

“We have, in our cases, seen (social media accounts) where we are trying to prove if a person is really someone’s common spouse,” Chew said.

Dead or alive, Facebook’s security settings are clear:

– You can deactivate your Facebook account and friends and pictures will be saved.

– You can delete your account, but you will never have access to it again and it may take up to three months for Facebook to delete information stored in the backup systems.

– You can designate an administrator in the legacy contact to memorialize your account.

– If you die suddenly, an immediate family member or executor will need to provide a death certificate to delete or memorialize the account.

The same rules apply for Instagram, where you can use tools like “Instaport” to save your photos.

Twitter allows your executor to deactivate your account but you won’t have access and it keeps all the information. LinkedIn, Outlook, Gmail, Dropbox and Icloud have similar policies.

Becky says her husband John didn’t like to talk about dying, but since she had his passwords, she inherited his online assets.

“People tell me that’s his legacy. I don’t think so. I think that’s part of his life. His legacy is his children and the love we had together,” she said.