Re: Death and Berevement

On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 9:39 PM, Phil Archer<phil@philarcher.org> wrote:
> Someone I'm linked to of Facebook raised an issue earlier as a joke - but
> actually, I think it has a serious side: if I die, will Facebook close my
> account?
>
> No, they won't - but /someone/ probably should. If I shuffled off this
> mortal coil tomorrow, the potential task for my wife or children would be
> tracking down a bunch of accounts and passwords that all needed updating
> with the news that I was no longer a burden to society. I wonder if there's
> a 'cancel all the accounts of person X' use case here?

Yes, I think social networks should provide a means for you to delete
your own data.  There was one of the metrics used int the "Privacy
Jungle" paper.  I think most of the nets covered scored quite poorly
on this issue.

>
> The problem would be malicious usage, so it would probably have to be
> something like making an online will: "I hereby give permission that, in the
> event of my death, person Y has the authority, using Z credentials, to
> cancel all my online accounts unless I log into /any/of them in the
> following 3 months" or something.

You need a system of delegated credentials.  Perhaps a web of trust
can be enabled do this?  But, depending on the sensitivity of the
operation you may need a phone conversation, or in some cases, even a
real life meeting.

>
> What I can't work out is whether this is something that might be part of a
> future standardisation track - or simply a commercial opportunity for
> someone. In which case, why the heck am I sending this to a public list?
>  ;-)

Related is the topic of expiring data.  This was discussed on
dataportability some time back, but not sure of the final conclusion.
There's also the Vanish project:

http://vanish.cs.washington.edu/

Which might be useful.

>
> Phil.
>
> --
>
> Phil Archer
> http://philarcher.org/
>
> i-sieve technologies                   |      W3C Mobile Web Initiative
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>
>

Received on Monday, 27 July 2009 12:25:49 UTC