Digital Asset Trust

December 29, 2016

A Spouse’s Unauthorized Access to Email Could Violate Wiretap Act

While the following article deals with divorce, our readers may consider it terms of accessing emails or online information of a deceased spouse or family member and the potential criminal liability that may be associated with accessing digital assets.

Federal wiretapping laws usually do not mix with state divorce proceedings. However, these laws became a central issue during the divorce of Paula Epstein from her husband Barry Epstein in Illinois. The issue is, did Ms. Epstein violate federal wiretapping laws when she put an auto-forward on her husband’s email account so she could read his emails.

Barry Epstein sued his wife under federal law while the couple was in the process of divorcing. Paula accused her husband of serial infidelity. In response, Barry’s attorney asked Paula for any documents and evidence she had that was related to the accusation. Paula complied and produced copies of the incriminating emails between Barry and several other women. This discovery response caused Barry to sue her under federal law.

Barry argued that Paula violated the Wiretap Act by secretly placing an auto-forwarding “rule” on his email accounts that automatically forwarded the messages on his email client to Paula. Barry also claimed Paula’s lawyer violated the Act by disclosing the intercepted emails. The courts dismissed this claim because the attorney could not be liable for disclosing Barry’s emails in response to his discovery request.

Background Information

October 4, 2016

Florida Passes Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act

by David M. Goldman

In March, the Florida governor approved a new law called the Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, which allows the loved ones of a decedent to access any digital assets he or she may have owned before death. This allows loved ones to access the recently deceased’s text messages, emails, online photographs, social media, and other electronic communications that would have otherwise been lost forever.

The act also allows Florida residents to plan for the management and disposition of digital assets should they become incapacitated or unable to manage their digital assets. Should either of these events happen, a person can grant an authorized fiduciary the power to access, control, or copy digital assets and accounts.

The Definition of Digital Assets

Digital assets under this Act are any electronic record that Florida resident has a right or interest in. This definition does not include any underlying assets or liabilities of the electronic asset. Examples of digital assets include information recorded on a computer or other digital device such as an external hard drive.

August 7, 2015

ULC has rewritten the “Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act”

by David M. Goldman

The first version of the Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, or UFADDA, emerged from major Internet and tech companies. They objected largely on the basis that the law violated the decedent’s privacy interests and would override many company’s current terms of service agreements.

In early 2015, the state-by-state legislative agenda for UFADAA appeared to be moving forward and on track and was introduced to 27 different state legislatures. Yet by the summer none of the states had enacted UFADAA, except for a modified 2014 edition adopted by Delaware. Continue reading

February 23, 2015

Facebook Account, Digital Assets and Estate Planning, what Happens when I die?

by David M. Goldman

Estate Planning for Digital Assets is becoming a more important part of our estate planning. While most online accounts simply expire when you die, Facebook has recently incorporated some changes to your account so you can specify what happens when you die.

Until recently, loved ones of the deceased only had two choices:

Keep the wall public so everyone could continue to post messages and thoughts on the wall, or
Request to have the page “memorialized,” which meant the profile was no longer searchable or visible to those who were not already friends of the individual.

What Facebook did not allow to happen was for someone to manage the profile of the deceased owner without having the password. That just changed with the Facebook Legacy Contact feature. A Facebook user can now choose a “legacy contact.” The Legacy Contact can manage your account or delete the account after you pass away.

Facebook’s Updated Options and Release Stated:

August 25, 2014

Estate Planning: Dealing with your digital death instead of before

by David M. Goldman

Portland company WebCease is making waves in the probate and estate-planning community by helping attorneys and grieving families locate the deceased’s digital accounts.

CEO Glenn Williamson aims to be the first to provide this service to the growing market of families and attorneys trying to track down digital accounts. Williamson is banking on the need for this service to continue to grow as people continue to use digital accounts for shopping, social media and traveling.

WebCease searches across different vendors to determine if the deceased person had an account. WebCease then generates a report that outlines the location of the deceased’s accounts and includes instructions on how to transfer the account or shut it down. The company will not take any action to use the account, or attempt to login to the account.

September 4, 2012

Who Ownes your Itunes Account? and Bruce Willis

by David M. Goldman

Last week there were several articles which brought light to many that our online identities are just licenses which will expire upon out death. While this concept is new to some, most lawyers understand this. Unfortunately there appear to be some who do not understand that we are dealing with licenses which expire upon death, because they are recommending that their clients deal with these assets using a traditional will. While they understand that a will only deals with assets that exist after death, they probably do not understand that your iTunes , Amazon , Gmail, Facebook, and Twitter accounts are licenses, which if owned individually, will not survive the death of the creator.

A Trust or Business entity can survive death! They are fictitious entities which are created by state statutes which do not have to dissolve upon death. A trust generally has provisions for beneficiaries unlike a business entity.

Last weekend the Wall Street Journal and several other publications ran articles on Who inherits your iTunes account?

April 19, 2012

Law Review Article on Digital Assets & Estate Planning

by David M. Goldman

John B. Conner has written a Law Review article in the Estate Planning and Community Property Law Journal titled “DIGITAL LIFE AFTER DEATH: THE ISSUE OF PLANNING FOR A PERSON’S DIGITAL ASSETS AFTER DEATH”

The article starts off discussing issues of digital assets and estate planning by defining digital assets and then discussing issues in estate planning created by digital assets.

It goes on to talk about how websites are dealing with digital assets and privacy acts as the relate to deceased users with social networking, web-based email, blogs and other online content.

April 6, 2012

Digital Asset Trusts: To my loving wife I leave my iTunes account

by David M. Goldman

Estate planning is an important event in one’s life. The fruits of a life time of hard work, passed down in the hopes that they will serve their next owner well. But in this modern age we live in, online digital assets are frequently left out of the estate planning process.

Much of our the time we spend each day is on the internet. How much of your information and is floating out there on the internet Between Facebook, PayPal, Flickr, twitter, iTunes, email addresses, passwords, user names and passwords, we have a lot of information that is not readily available to others if we should become incapacitated or die. In this age of the internet what happens to all of that personal info when we finally shed our mortal coil and update our Facebook status to dead? Do we want to loose our Facebook account when we die? Once the status is updated to deceased, it cannot be modified, updated, or used for other purposes. It continues to exist, just as you left it, until the asteroid strikes earth, or the apes rise up, or whatever your favorite end of the word scenario is, ends up happening. There may be value to your family or estate in being able to communicate with your previous friends.

To some this is perfectly acceptable. Some Facebook albums just never need to be seen again, for the good of all mankind. The problem arises when there is something worth saving, something worth passing down. The picture of you two on graduation day, wedding photos, that blog about the summer you spent in Europe, or photographic proof of how much more attractive your grandma was at your age. The memories and happiness that these photos will bring your loved ones is immeasurable. There may be things that your family wants to remove or modify. Something that was important to you, which they can now keep close, fondly reflect on, or pass down themselves. The hitch is only you knew your log in info, and your dead, and those close to you can’t guess the answer to your asinine password hint question. What is the name of my mother’s favorite pet? Seriously…. she lived to a hundred and had 9 cats when she died. How am I supposed to guess that.

July 28, 2011

DAP Trust: Dealing with your Digital / Online Rights and Propert Correctly.

by David M. Goldman

Today there is a big hole in most estate plans. Most estate plans do not deal with the property and licence rights that almost all Americans have accumulated with their online lives.

What online assets should be concerned with?

Email Accounts – Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, Comcast, AOL …

June 28, 2011

What to do with your Internet passwords when you die?

by David M. Goldman

Coming of age in this digital world has its luxuries, but those luxuries come with their own set of complexities. Face Book enables you to connect with friends; blogging sites (such as this one) allow you to express your ideas to the world; and paying your bill over the Internet is convenient and environmentally friendly. What do all these different types of luxuries have in common? You must remember your password in order to access the information on them. These websites can add up quickly, and so too can the passwords that access them. Then throw in all the passwords you have for work in addition to all the passwords for your personal life, and these can be hard to remember when you are firing on all cylinders.

Digital Asset Protection.

Now, throw in an accident where you either pass away or are mentally incapable and there is a vast amount of information that you or your estate needs to access. If you have a Digital Asset Protection Trust , you will likely be taken care of. By having a Digital Asset Protection Trust , you decide who gets your online account information and what they can do with that information. To give you peace of mind, your Digital Asset Protection Trust attorney has attorney-client privilege with you, ensuring that the people who have access to your information, should a tragedy occur, will only know of those online accounts which you personally have laid out. It is never too early to begin preparing yourself in case a tragedy occurs.