4 Ds of Information loss – Death

Death comes to us all. And from a legal perspective, death doesn't stop data. Data is property. Digital photographs are the same as physical photographs from an ownership perspective.

However, the law and reality split.

Getting your hands on your data

Lets assume that Aunt Bessie has died. What now... well as her only heir you get everything.
All her encrypted files. All her data accounts. All her data is yours, but you can't get to it.

Unless Bessie provided something for you...

As Ellybabes pointed out in her Death and Divorce in the Digital World presentation, unless you leave someone the password, they are going to stay locked out.

There is a method... as was pointed out in the ‘Security Now!’ podcast (episode 72):

Today, while alive, I don’t want to give my sensitive stuff or passwords to anyone, including my wife. But when I eventually die or become very ill, I need to make sure that my family has access.
But I know my wife wouldn’t be able to figure it out to save her life. If I have TrueCrypted all of my data, have complex unguessable password schemes and so forth, how do I unwind all of that for the benefit of other people I care about in my life?

So what you could do would be give to your attorney who has your will, or in a safety deposit box, something where access will be granted in the event of something bad happening to you without your taking any action.
Here’s what I’m thinking is that you separate the information out. So one of the things TrueCrypt lets you do is have an image file and a password. You need both; right? Maybe give the attorney the password, maybe even put it in your will, and store the image file in a safety deposit box. Separate the two, to be opened on your death or whatever.

But if you change your password regularly... then the copy with the attorney is probably out of date.
You could always try to break in to the machine, or maybe you don't need to, after all, if the hard drive is not encrypted, you just need to put it in another machine. Right?

What if the machine isn't local. What if the data is on a remote server. Do you need to go get a wig and break in somewhere.

Well, if you want to keep the data, the answer might be yet.

No right of survivorship

Under the terms of service of Yahoo, which includes the photograph sharing service Flickr,

(section 27 Paragraph 4)No Right of Survivorship and Non-Transferability. You agree that your Yahoo! account is non-transferable and any rights to your Yahoo! ID or contents within your account terminate upon your death. Upon receipt of a copy of a death certificate, your account may be terminated and all contents therein permanently deleted.

Or if you prove that she's dead, you loose access to all her stuff permanently.

For the record, a Flickr.com spokesperson detailed how their system works...

Flickr works with the Yahoo! Legal Compliance team to resolve these types of situations. You'll need to send them a copy of the death certificate in order to have the Flickr
account closed. Please include their Yahoo! ID as well as their Flickr screen name for removal of the Flickr account. Compliance can be reached [via telephone and fax].

After a death certificate is received we are not able to
give access to the account but we can close it.

Memorial State

Sites like Facebook are a little more accommodating. According to a Facebook spokesperson

When it comes to our attention that a user has passed away, put the profile in a Memorial State. In the Memorial State, certain profile sections and features are hidden from view to protect the privacy of the departed. We encourage users to utilize groups and group discussions to mourn and remember the deceased.

I don't know what "Memorial State" means, but it does mean that the data is retained.

Not everywhere has such a formal response... I contacted the Irish based life data organizerPutPlace.com and the photo and social network Pix.ie.

When I posed the question to Marcus MacInnes of Pix.ie he replied...

We do not have a specific policy dealing with the death of one of our users. Our policy on account access however is as follows:
We provide access to a user’s account only under one of the following conditions:
1.via our automated password recovery method;
2. if instructed to do so by a user’s legal personal representative (which may be the user themselves);
3. if we are required to do so by law.

In the event that the owner of an account dies, upon request, we would be obliged to surrender that account to the user’s legal personal representative (usually the executor of their will). The legal representative would then act in accordance with the wishes of the deceased and may for instance request deletion of the account.

And Joe Drumgoole of PutPlace.com explained that

we haven't put the legal framework in place yet. Our intention is that all content gets assigned to the probate or estate and the executor gets to do his stuff. In situations where no estate exists or legal structures don't support it we will allow appropriate next of kin (spouse, children, siblings, parents etc.) with supporting documentation to take over the account. We will support an alternate contact to allow somebody else to recover the account but we depend on the user to keep this up to date.

Its definitely a tricky area and something we will be coming across more and more in the future.

Messages from beyond

Another complicating factor is that with more and more of s spending our lives on line. Frequently out virtual network of friends and "friends" are the only ones that the next of kin cannot contact, because all this data exists on remote servers. Do you have a local or hard copy of all your friends contact e-mail addresses or IM names? (Actually do you have a list of all your accounts?)

If you got access to Aunt Bessie's social network account, should "she" be the one sending the funeral notice. Is parking the account in a "Memorial State" the answer? Marcus MacInnes of Pix.ie explained

[the] moral issue which until your question, we had not fully considered. How would friends react to receiving an on-line message from someone whom they knew had recently died. We cannot assume that the custodian of the account would act in any given manner and it is not clear whether or not we have a moral responsibility to provide reasonable protection to our users from receiving messages via our platform which are likely to cause distress. An example of this may be when a custodian acts irresponsibly, either intentionally or unintentionally.

Because of my questions, their policies are being reviewed.

I would have loved to include details of the policies of other vendors, but only the above companies contacted my in time. If I get any more details I'll include them in the comments.

Take care,
William Knott

With kind thanks to John Looney of Google (for the tech and social angles) and Simon McGarr of Tuppenceworth.ie (for the legal questions and answers) and for all the people quoted above for providing their perspectives.

tags : 4 Ds of Information loss, 4 ds, Death, legallegal, property, Ellybabes, Security Now, right of survivorship, terms of service, Yahoo, Flickr, death certificate, memorial state, Facebook, PutPlace.com, Pix.ie, Marcus MacInnes, Joe Drumgoole, friend, moral responsibility

A Halloween with Bite

pink31 Creepy Milk Teeth
Originally uploaded by cork_host

And so its over. This is the last pink photo for the Pink for October gig. You can see all the pink photos on flickr if you like.

The bad news is I think I got the photoblogging bug. Just as well I have a crap camera...

Will

p.s. Happy Hallowe'en

Pink (and) triangle

pink15 Brunch
Originally uploaded by cork_host

No the title has nothing to do with coming out but a combination of my Pink for October photo-blogging and Blog action day's blogging about the environment.

To begin with, look at the picture. Yes its Brunch ice cream lollies in their pink packaging. However take a closer look and can you see what's missing.



You can just about make out the circular "this can be recycled" logo. Which really means "in theory this can be recycled but probably can't".

Now with a bit of invention, everything can be reused. Spectacle frames can be reused. Spent party poppers can be reused. Even cold porridge can be reused (Cut into wedges, fry and top with golden syrup). But recycling is something else.

Recycling is reprocessing an item back to its constituent parts so as to convert it (sometimes unrecognisably) in to a new item. Paper that has been pulped and reprocessed in to a new sheet of paper is still a sheet of paper. But it could have been a newspaper or junk mail in a previous life. A child's toy is still plastic, but it could have been a milk carton or a bottle in a previous life.

In order to do this processing, a processor needs to know what the item is. Sometimes, as in the case of glass, its easy. Frequently in the case of plastic, its almost impossible. Not all plastics are created equal, but identical plastic bags may not be made from the same type of plastic. In order to tell them apart, the plastic should be marked (printed, stamped or embossed) with an international universal recycling code usually a number inside the international three arrow recycling symbol. Sometimes it's the descriptive text written beside an empty arrow triangle. Without that identifying number or text, you have something for landfill.

Many recycling facilities and collection facilities won't accept plastics without that logo and code (and sometimes they only takes a subset of the plastics). So keep an eye on the packaging. The circle means nothing, but the triangle might save the world. And complain if the packaging does not display the logo.

After all, without it, it's junk.

Junk which will sit in a landfill for about 100,000 years and help deplete resources (unless landfill mining is an industry on 100 years time).

Of course there is always that suspicion that stuff sent for recycling goes to landfill anyway, but doing your part in this helps.

take care,
Will

tags : pinkforoctober, blogactionday, blog action day, reuse, processor, plastic, triangle, resource, recycling, landfill, flickr

Cabbage on a stick

pink 08 - plant
Originally uploaded by cork_host

Snapped this bunch of flowers as part of my Pink photo-blogging (it's all single focus camera phone folks). However this has me stumped. The plant look like a cabbage on a stick. Any idea about what it is?

Will



tags : pinkforoctober, Pink, pink for October, Breast Cancer, photo, flickr

Rose pink

pink06
Originally uploaded by cork_host

More of the pink for October shots, finally up to date. There will 31 in the set by Hallowe'en



tags : pinkforoctober, Pink, pink for October, Breast Cancer, photo, flickr

Pinking about cancer

pink01
Originally uploaded by cork_host

Well this is Breast Cancer Awareness month (and yet there is no Bowel Cancer Awareness day). And I was thinking what could I do.
There is a move on to turn your website Pink for October. I wouldn't be the first Irish blogger to do so, however its a pain to change the template of a blogger blog without causing damage to the layout.

So I thought, what else could I do?

I'm starting late, but every 2nd day I'll post a pink photo here and on Flickr. And yes, thats my idea of a pink photo?


take care,
Will

tags : pinkforoctober, Pink, pink for October, Breast Cancer, photo, flickr

Photographic evidence

"That's what Flickr is for"
Elena on how to find out what you did the previous night when you can't remember what happened at the Irish Blog Awards 2007.

And some people have modified the photos after the fact

tags:

Flickr, overheard, overacupoftea, Irish Blog Awards 2007, tomrafteryit.net