Digital Inheritance

Digital Inheritance Wendy Moncur

Annalu Waller

Department of Computing Science University of Aberdeen Aberdeen +44 (0)1224 27 4173

School of Applied Computing University of Dundee Dundee +44 (0)1382 388223 [email protected]

[email protected]

ABSTRACT When people die, they are increasingly leaving digital 'footprints' behind. We outline a novel area of research: how these digital 'footprints' can be bequeathed, inherited and appropriately repurposed. This is an area which has high potential for innovation and impact within the RCUK Digital Economy program, and upon the wider community.

Categories and Subject Descriptors H5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): Miscellaneous.

General Terms Design, Human Factors, Legal Aspects.

Keywords Thanatosensitive design, data inheritance, memorialisation, technospiritual practices.

1. INTRODUCTION People are increasingly storing personal data online. Through the RCUK Digital Economy program, further significant quantities of valuable personal data are likely to be generated. During their lives, users in the UK can (in principle) access their personal data. After death, “digital systems raise issues of ownership, access and persistence, which together create new issues and complications for the bereaved” [11]. There is a lack of acceptable mechanisms for the bequest and inheritance of digital artefacts [7]. Nor is there a model for the appropriate repurposing of these digital artefacts. This failure to engage with user death impacts adversely on both users and industry.

2. ENGAGING WITH USER DEATH 2.1 Bequest & Inheritance Despite the ubiquitous use of social networking, ICT systems are seldom designed to cater for user death. They do not enable users to nominate inheritors of their data, even though this data may have emotional, financial or intellectual significance to the Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Digital Futures’10, October 11 – 12, 2010, Nottingham, UK. Copyright 2010 ACM 1-58113-000-0/00/0010…$10.00.

bereaved [4]. Approaches are inconsistent across Internet Service Providers (ISPs), social networking sites (SNSs) and other online service providers. They are also inconsistent from one country to another, with minor differences occurring within the EU, and major differences globally. To compound the problem, ‘e-wills’ are not legally acceptable in the vast majority of countries across the globe, with a few exceptions in individual states in the USA. At best, ISPs’ terms and conditions may identify a default for what will happen to personal data if a user dies. At worst, “instructions for retrieving data after a person dies are … nonexistent” [2]. Given the inevitability of death and the ever-increasing size of digital ‘footprints’, the situation outlined above is unsatisfactory for users and the bereaved. Those who may wish to put their affairs in order – e.g. those who are terminally ill and those in dangerous occupations – cannot be sure that their wishes with respect to their digital inheritance will be effected if they die. Their inheritors may face an unpleasant and costly legal battle to gain access to the deceased’s personal data. The situation is also undesirable from the perspective of online service providers, who may face awkward decisions that are fraught with privacy concerns. A deceased user may have held data online which was intended to remain private in perpetuity – e.g. emails expressing negative opinions about those close to them, evidence of extra-marital affairs, illegal activities. By giving executors and the bereaved access to the deceased’s personal data, online service providers may unwittingly unleash Pandora’s Box. However, refusing to give executors and the bereaved access to the deceased’s personal data can cause problems too. An example is the case of U.S. Marine Corps Lance Corporal Justin M. Ellsworth, killed in action in Iraq in 2004. After Ellsworth’s death, his father requested access to LCpl.Ellsworth’s personal data (emails, attachments, diary entries) which were stored by Yahoo!. Yahoo!’s refusal to surrender the data led to a high-profile court case between Ellsworth’s family and the ISP [2], and damage to Yahoo!’s public image1.

2.2 Repurposing and memorialisation When they are able to access the digital artefacts of the deceased, there is growing evidence that the bereaved are reusing these artefacts to create their own technology-based responses to death and loss, such as online memorials [3, 6, 10]. This re-purposing is a user-driven development in the use of 1

http://www.fallenheroesmemorial.com/oif/profiles/ellsworthju stinm.html

social media, emerging in an era when religion and community are faltering, and where traditional grief rituals have often been abandoned. It can make a beneficial contribution to the bereavement process. However, instantiation, ownership and moderation of online memorials are ungoverned. This creates potential for the bereaved to be further distressed by activity outside of their control - e.g. inappropriate or insensitive content posted on social network sites (SNSs) where cyber-bullying continued after the victim committed suicide2; posthumous conversion to another religion of the deceased, without permission from their loved ones3.

3. “THANATOSENSITIVE” RESEARCH The HCI community is just beginning to address the issues surrounding the design of technology to “explicitly account for questions of human mortality, dying, and death” [7] – a subject area that Massimi terms “thanatosensitive”. A preliminary response to Massimi’s call for thanatosensitive research to be carried out was made by the international HCI community in 2010, in the first HCI workshop on death and dying [8]. In contrast, the social sciences contain a rich research base. A theoretical understanding of the bereavement process and empathetic social behaviour can be drawn from other disciplines – e.g. Kubler-Ross’s Five Stages of Loss [5] and Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory [1]. The expertise of legal colleagues with respect to intellectual property, copyright and inheritance law is also highly relevant.

4. DISCUSSION In this paper, we have outlined the central challenges relating to what happens to digital artefacts after users die. We seek to address these challenges through (i) the creation of protocols for the bequest and inheritance of these digital artefacts, and (ii) the development of a model for the socially acceptable creation, ownership and management of technology-based resources which repurpose these artefacts. In addressing these challenges, our vision is to adopt a participatory approach, engaging with the public (particularly the recently bereaved, and those working in dangerous occupations such as the armed forces), lawyers, psychologists and those who support the bereaved. Conducting this research calls for a strong understanding of ethical implications [9], as it involves vulnerable populations and a deeply sensitive subject. With its user-centred approach and multi-disciplinary membership, the RCUK Digital Economy program is an ideal umbrella under which to meet these challenges. We would welcome the opportunity to engage with cross-disciplinary researchers from the Digital Economy Hubs.

5. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks are due to Michael Muller (IBM), David Prendergast (Intel Ireland), Karen Petrie (University of Dundee), and the barrister Stephen Mason for their input and encouragement in scoping this research idea. 2

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/29/earlyshow/main63 43077.shtml

3

http://mormonism.suite101.com/article.cfm/lds_baptism_for_th e_dead

The authors are members of the Joint Research Institute for Computational Systems of the SFC Northern Research Partnership (NRP).

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