Facebook 'Legacy Contacts'

Would it bother you if you left this world and your Facebook presence lives on?

I have to admit, it bothers me to a certain extent. My opinion about this was formed in no small part by the experience I had trying to get Facebook to delete my mothers' account when she passed away. I was lucky that I managed to gain access to the account. It really does nothing for the grieving process when accounts are kept alive.

Basically if you don't have the password, you'll get nowhere with them - I don't blame them actually, for all they know, every attempt to gain access to an account could have malicious intent. To get them to shut down the account, evidence of death - i.e. death certificate would have to be provided to Facebook before they would take any action. You can find the relevant link here.

Which is why I think that Facebooks' decision to introduce 'Legacy Contact' is a great thing. You can now finally decide what happens to your Facebook account when you die as opposed to the method above where evidence must be provided of what has happened to your loved ones. You decide, now, when you're alive by assigning ONE person as your legacy contact, in other words, there's no backup for your backup.

Your legacy contact will be informed about your decision

What can your legacy contact do? They can write a post to tell the world you've passed on, change your profile pic and respond to any new friend requests. They can also download an archive of all your posts and photos you've posted. They cannot however access the private messages, edit your previous posts or remove any photos you've posted. They also do not have the authorization to delete your account.

So what happens if you do not name anyone to manage your digital accounts in your will or make use of Facebooks' legacy contact? If Facebook somehow finds out that you've passed on, it will freeze your account and leave your posts and pictures at the privacy settings you last settled on - they call this memorialized accounts.

So what are you waiting for? Take control today. Head over to Settings, Security and then Legacy Contact. Currently it is only availble in the US, I'll be getting this done once it's ready for users in Singapore.

Not available in SG yet!

If you're interested, Google has its' own version of Legacy Contact. It's known as Inactive Account Manager, learn more about it here. One of the differences that stand out is the ability to set a timeout period, which starts after your last sign-in and once it's exceeded, the account status would be seen as inactive.