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Interesting piece here about Cory Doctorow’s search for a solution to the problem of what to do with your “digital legacy”. Now that so much of our lives is lived/captured/stored digitally, it’s far more likely that our executors and relatives will need to unlock a laptop, disk drive or a file than a desk drawer or a filing cabinet… and yet, as Cory notes, there’s not much on the market that provides a simple solution.
The French eID scheme has, for some time, included a ‘digital vault’ for each citizen to use as a repository, but I don’t know what the escrow arrangements are should the citizen die and someone else need access. Perhaps someone could comment if they know the details?
Cory mulls over the compliexity of various DIY options – but fortunately for him, help may be at hand in the form of the EU-sponsored PrimeLife project. At the project’s Reference Group meeting in Frankfurt earlier this year, I heard an excellent talk by Sandra Steinbrecher on “Trusted Content and Privacy Throughout Life”. The slides are online here, and I recommend them for their clear analysis of the problem.