What can I do right now to protect my virtual patrimony after my death?

If you decide to make a Will, here is how it is recommended to act for protecting in the best possible way your virtual patrimony and that your virtual assets are passed on to the persons whom you will choose.

• Make an inventory of your accounts on the Web

You can establish a complete list of all your virtual assets and your accounts with service providers, including your IDs, access codes and passwords. This list will have to be faithfully kept updated until your death.

• Sign a power of attorney to appoint a trusted person who will hold the list of your digital data until your death

For the purposes of your Will, you can draft a document constituting a power of attorney by which you will appoint a person you trust, who could be either your lawyer, your accountant, your notary or a close relative, to whom you will give the complete list of your accounts on the Web with their IDs, access codes and passwords so that this person holds it, in trust for the future needs of your succession and in a confidential manner, until your death; you can also attach to this list the contracts that you have signed with service providers. By virtue of this power of attorney, your trusted person will then have the mandate to hand over this list that he holds to your heirs or the liquidator as the case may be, such as provided in your Will.

From a legal point of view, the transmission of IDs and passwords to a trusted person does not constitute a transfer of the deceased's right of ownership in his virtual assets concerned by such a transmission of IDs and passwords.

If you add new accounts or change your IDs or passwords, you will have to deliver to this trusted person an updated list. This will allow your heirs or the liquidator to access easily to all your accounts and safeguard a copy of it before requesting the closing of your accounts, if that is your wish.

• Make your Will by planning the fate of your virtual assets

Within the framework of the preparation of your Will, it would then be useful to provide a stipulation in which you will specifically decide what will happen to your virtual assets after your death, either to whom these assets will be passed on or which of your accounts will have to be closed. The testator can provide a different treatment for each of his virtual assets concerned, according to the importance that some of these assets represent for him.

You will also grant to the liquidator of your succession full administration of your virtual patrimony, which will give him full powers to represent the succession with your service providers.

The liquidator of your succession will receive the list of your virtual assets that you will have handed to your mandatary appointed by a power of attorney. Upon receiving this list, the liquidator can have access to all your accounts without difficulty (via your IDs, access codes and passwords); he can so recover any information that these accounts contain, on behalf of your succession, if that is your wish.

Then, the liquidator will have to respect your last wishes regarding the fate reserved for your virtual patrimony and he will have the task, either to close your various accounts, or to safeguard the contents of your accounts and repatriate same in the assets of the succession to pass it on to your heirs, in order to be subsequently able to close safely your various accounts. Finally, the liquidator of your succession will have to pass on to your heirs or legatees your virtual assets such as you stipulated it in your Will.