Tag Archives: passwords

Data Encryption and Estate Planning for Incapacity and Death

During my presentation at the 45th Annual Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning on January 12, 2011, I mentioned that a strong password plus strong encryption can make it practically impossible to access an incapacitated or deceased person’s data if you don’t … Continue reading

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Jim Lamm Presents on Estate Planning for Passwords, Online Accounts, and Digital Property at 2011 Heckerling Institute

On Wednesday, January 12, 2011, I presented a ninety–minute seminar titled “Estate Planning 2.0: Digital Property and Tech–Savvy Clients—Time to Reboot Your Practice” with Karin C. Prangely at the 45th Annual Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning in Orlando, Florida. We … Continue reading

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Conduct a Digital Fire Drill to Identify Important or Valuable Digital Property

When I talk with people about doing estate planning for their digital property—their passwords, online accounts, computers, smartphones, and electronic data—I sometimes ask them to conduct a “digital fire drill”: If your computer is lost, stolen, or damaged today, what … Continue reading

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Man Charged With Felony for Reading Wife’s E-Mails

A December 26, 2010, news story from the Detroit Free Press reports that a Michigan man was charged with a felony for reading his wife’s e–mails from her free Google Gmail account. He was charged under Michigan Compiled Laws § 752.795, … Continue reading

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Study Finds Same Passwords Used on Multiple Online Accounts by Most People

While the results aren’t too surprising, BitDefender issued a press release on August 9, 2010, concluding that 75% of users that they studied had the same password for both their e–mail accounts and their social networking accounts (link). Although this … Continue reading

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Estate Planning for Video Games and Virtual Worlds

Family members and fiduciaries may not consider online video game accounts or accounts in virtual worlds to be valuable property, but they can be. With online video games, the time and effort involved in building a powerful character or accumulating … Continue reading

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Estate Planning for Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and Other Social Networking Accounts

Social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and similar sites enable individuals to communicate and interact easily. In a recent survey of U.S. adults who use social networking accounts, 28% use social networking site to promote themselves or … Continue reading

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Estate Planning for eBay and Other Online Sales Accounts

Whether a person runs an online sales business or just sells an occasional personal item, online sales may be in process when the person becomes incapacitated or dies. A good place to start is to monitor the person’s e–mail accounts … Continue reading

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Accessing a Decedent’s Yahoo! Mail Account

If a family member or fiduciary would like to access a deceased person’s Yahoo! Mail account (Yahoo!’s free Web–based e–mail service), hopefully, the person planned ahead and left the account username and password. If not, it may be possible to … Continue reading

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Accessing a Decedent’s Hotmail Account

If a family member or fiduciary would like to access a deceased person’s Hotmail account (Microsoft’s free Web–based e–mail service, also known as Microsoft Windows Live Hotmail), hopefully, the person planned ahead and left the account username and password. If … Continue reading

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