Digital identities live on after death, but who owns them?

(Ecns.cn) -- Cyberspace is now an entrenched part of our everyday lives, yet how our online passwords and digital "property" are handled after we die is becoming an increasingly contentious issue.

In China, major service providers that enable our Web-articulated selves have only vague policies about the fate of our digital afterlives – or no policies at all.

And because Internet accounts are governed by contracts between individuals and service providers, problems can easily arise for family members, agents or executors in the event of an individual's incapacity or death.

Sleeping virtual assets

Last year, Xiang Weiyi (Yiyi) miraculously survived the catastrophic Wenzhou high-speed train collision on July 23, but her parents did not. As a result, Sina Weibo, a prominent Twitter-like service provider in China, decided to hand over the microblog account of Yiyi's mother to her family, according to the Southern Metropolis Weekly.

Though many were pleased by Sina Weibo's gesture, it also sparked awareness and concern among the public that Internet accounts are a kind of property that can be inherited.

Yet the inheritance of digital property remains a grey area in China, which lacks comprehensive laws or regulations for people who want to protect their digital assets. The case of the microblog account of Yiyi's mother has been one of the few with happy endings.

Much more commonly, family members have been unable access a loved one's digital property because they lack the user ID and password, and service providers have refused to reveal the information or transfer it to the next of kin.

According to Deven Desai, associate professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in California, the problem is becoming increasingly pertinent as the first wave of online users is now dying. It is not just youths, Desai added, but people between 40 and 70 who also have a lot of things online.

Last month, the Southern Metropolis Weekly conducted an online survey in which 65.62 percent of respondents said they were aware of digital property, and about 20 percent believed that the value of their virtual assets is over 5,000 yuan (US$792). 52.19 percent hoped that their relatives could inherit the digital property.

Heartless contracts

The size of the digital memories we are creating is growing exponentially. In the past, people might have used shoeboxes to store their photographs, while a Flickr account often serves that purpose today; and for centuries, people tried every means to protect their diaries, yet today a blog can record a whole life's thoughts and feelings for others to read online.

It is now taken for granted that the things we do on the Web are reflections of who we are or, more importantly, who we wish to be. But what if the people we love do not have access to it after we die?

In 2011, Xu Yang was killed in a car accident in Shenyang of northeast China's Liaoning Province. His bereaved wife, Wang Fang, eventually began working to compile all of their letters and photos for her memory.

After many years, Wang's husband had saved numerous emails and photos in his Tencent QQ account, including those created after their marriage. However, Wang did not know the password for Xu's QQ account, so she turned to Tencent for help.

However, Wang was told that she could not get access unless she applied for the lost password through various procedures, such as providing the owner's basic information, his mobile phone number and use records, as well as at least five of his QQ contact user names and their verifications.

Confused, Wang argued that the QQ account was her husband's digital property, and should be inherited by her after his death.

In response, Tencent explained that a QQ account is not a private asset; the owner only has the right to use the account – but does not have ownership – according to the contract agreement between the two parties.

Service providers such as Yahoo and Facebook have similar terms with users. For example, Yahoo's terms and conditions state that email accounts are not transferable and cannot be inherited.

New policy needed

With a growing number of people questioning the suitability and lawfulness of such terms and conditions, some Internet companies have started to develop policies to help address the problem.

Now, Facebook turns a user's page into a memorial site after his or her death, allowing friends and family to post tributes on the page while preventing anyone else from logging in. Google allows access to an account if the next of kin produces the correct death certificates and identification documents.

However, virtual assets have little legal protection in China, and in recent years more and more disputes have arisen over property such as online data, emails, Internet accounts and other rights that exist in the digital world.

Under such circumstances, a potential market for the digital afterlife has begun taking shape. Companies such as Entrustet, Deathswitch, Legacy Locker and GreatGoodbye are looking to make the transfer of digital treasures possible for surviving friends and family with safe, secure repositories.

"The Internet's not written in pencil. It's written in ink," according to a character in the movie "The Social Network." Nowadays, nearly everyone has digital assets, and they should be protected.