The main topic lies more on data retention after a person is deceased from stuff such as bank cards, driver's licenses, pay in 4 installments, PayPal account, social media presence, rental lease, etc. so does the privacy aspect of it become all public information for everyone to see since they consider their right to privacy rescinded as they are dead or will the person's relatives & close friends take ownership (via their estate)?

For instance, what happens if that individual still has remaining debt from After Pay with a catch: they're no longer alive to settle the remaining amount? They also have left over debt from their CC but the holder is dead. He or she may be an influencer with a large following, their recent post marks as a unofficial obituary as they're no longer posting any updates after (they're dead) but fans may say their condolences on the comments.

In terms of social media, should a dead person's account remain active (under the condition that a close friend or family member must take full ownership his or her account as their "digital" will) or be permanently closed (so the platform deletes it from their database, to avert hackers from impersonating them). What about his or her bank cards, passport or driver's license after their passing? Do they have any validity or is it rendered null?

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[–] 3 points 15 hours ago

Let me answer what happens currently:

When a person is dead, trust & wills happens. Either someone is explicitly given ownership of the estate (often it is split between children) but if not, the estate forms it's own legal entity that operates to the best understanding of the decedents wishes.

With the accounts it's a bit more complicated but generally from what I know a lot of platforms offer to reassign an account if a death certificate is provided and a family member has come forward to request control. However in practice I would assume this only happens to the accounts that family members are aware of, and the rest of them basically become stale.

With regards to privacy, I would assume it is preserved for the most part. If relevant details about the decedent come up for legal reasons there might be some good cause to breach these but I can't imagine all person information gets revealed just because. Though I'm also not a lawyer, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

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