We all know about the big brother reading our e-mails. But as we don´t know him personally, we got used to it, call it sort of reasonably prized liberty. You may ask yourself if you´d communicate digitally in another way if you knew your heirs or relatives would read it after your death. They will not, you´d say, cause they´d had no access due to the missing password which you hided at an undiscoverable place or kept in your brain. But maybe your e-mail provider may be obliged to disclose your password to your heirs or relatives. This is the most controversial discussed judicial subject concerning digital assets in Germany since the problem was popularly detected a few years ago. There exists no legal rule, no court decision and the provider act in a legal limbo. On the one hand you can argue the treaty with a provider ends with the user´s death and it might be extremly personal and there might be touched concerns of his or her e-mail partners, on the other hand there is a heritage to hold and the e-mail account is mostly the centre of informations about lawful obligations and responsibilities. It´s advising to make a decision about it and include it in your last will. Recently I made a research on the legal situation in Germany for an article so I just want you to take part at this important issue even though this is not about life, poems, cinema or my favourite music about which I´m – hopefully – going to continue writing soon.
Archives: Digitaler Nachlass
2016 28 Sep
Surveillance (1): Digital Assets
Martina Weber | Filed under: Blog | RSS 2.0 | TB | Tags: Digitaler Nachlass | 2 Comments