What Happens if Your Family Can’t Unlock Your Phone?
Sorry for a bit of a downer post, but your phone is the center of most people’s security universe. What happens if your family is unable to unlock it? Your family will not be able to get to your text messages or your other security apps (2FA) to log into your email or other accounts. If your “unavailability” is temporary, then that is probably okay. If it is “permanent”, that is more of a problem.
As an example, lets assume that you are crossing the street and hit by the proverbial bus.
Your family may not be able to get into the family’s bank accounts or investment accounts.
Less important (at least to me), is that they won’t be able to get into your social media accounts by resetting the passwords.
Likewise, your family won’t be able to get into your email account.
I have some personal experience in this area and can tell you that everyone from the local utility company to Facebook is going to have a different approach to dealing with this. For example, some online provider companies will lock your account if they find out you passed away. You really do not want to let them find out if you can avoid it.
Most companies do not understand the concept of a will and even if they do, they are not bound by anything in it. You cannot “inherit” your significant other’s online accounts.
Many online services, such as a bank, will allow multiple owners on an account. Others, such as Dropbox, won’t allow multiple owners, but some allow others to get access to your data.
One very simple and low tech way to reduce the risk is to write down user names and passwords and store them in a secure place.
Alternatively, some password managers allow multiple users to access the account and some even have an “on death” feature which will grant access to someone if you pass away.
Typically, cell phone providers will grant an executor access to a deceased person’s phone account, but only after the court recognizes you as the executor. Could take a month.
There are a number of things that you can do to make this less of a problem. Plan now.
By the way, this can be even more of a problem if you have not handled this for your business; this is not only a personal issue.
If you need help with this, please contact us.
Credit: ZDNet
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