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Protecting your on-line memories.

The answer to the question what would you save if your house was on fire? in the olden days always included the prized family photos, 'they can never be replaced', well times have changed and I doubt that would enter the mind of anyone below the age of 25, but do we protect those memories as we once did, I guess the difference is that photos were once tangible but now we live in the digital age.

Many of us post our photos on Facebook amongst other social web sites, but are we protecting our photographic legacy? who actually owns the digital images once on-line?

In a recent survey over 2,000 people were asked what they think happens to digital images on Facebook if a user passes away, a third of people said Facebook owned the images and only one in five said the next of kin, the others had no idea.

So who does?

The biggest problem answering this is that it's all so new, but more and more cases are coming to light about disputes between relatives and social media providers, there is no code of conduct that all social media companies conform with.

In so many cases the deceased has password protected their account making it difficult to get the information if the on-line company will not co-operate. This was recently highlighted in the media where a 19 yrs old sadly passed away and the family continued to use her account to contact people and share memories, this became a great comfort to the family, until one day the account was locked by Facebook, in accordance with their terms and conditions, the account was locked and could no longer be accessed.

The biggest problem is that whilst we all consider our assets when drawing up a Will, we do not consider the new digital family album.

We do need to consider our online footprint, passwords for everything e.g. bank and social media accounts, what would you want to happen with them in the event of your death?

When you are considering drawing up a Will, or making a revision, make sure you don't leave out your digital wishes.

Protecting your on-line memories.
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