They gave our parents smartphones — but what happens when they pass away?

 they gave our parents smartphones — but what happens when they pass away?

For years, we encouraged our parents to get smartphones.

We told them it would make life easier.

They could call us.

Text us.

Video chat with the grandchildren.

Take photographs.

Check the weather.

Find directions.

Keep appointments.

Use banking apps.

Stay connected.

For many older people, smartphones became an important part of independence.

But there is something we didn't talk about very much.

What happens to all of that when someone passes away?

Because a smartphone isn't just a phone anymore.

It can hold years of photographs.

Text conversations.

Email.

Contacts.

Notes.

Documents.

Passwords.

Banking information.

Two-factor authentication.

Access to social media.

Cloud storage.

Subscriptions.

Sometimes an entire creative life.

And much of it is protected by layers of security that were designed specifically to prevent other people from getting access.

That's wonderful while we're using our phones.

But after someone passes away, those same protections can create difficult questions for the people left behind.

Who knows which accounts existed?

Who knows where the photographs are stored?

Who knows what subscriptions need to be cancelled?

Who knows about websites, blogs or domain names?

Who knows how to access important documents?

Who knows what needs to be preserved?

And what happens to the phone itself?

Apple and Google have both created systems to address parts of this problem.

Apple has Legacy Contact, which allows someone to designate a person who can request access to certain account information after they pass away. But it doesn't provide access to everything. Some information, including passwords and passkeys stored in iCloud Keychain, isn't included.

Google has Inactive Account Manager, which allows people to make arrangements for certain information to be shared after an account has been inactive for a specified period.

These tools are a beginning.

But they also show us just how different our lives have become.

Once upon a time, an important photograph was something you could hold.

An important letter was in a drawer.

An address was written in a little book.

Important papers might be in a filing cabinet.

Now some of our most precious possessions aren't physical at all.

They're behind a password.

Or Face ID.

Or a cloud account.

Or an authentication code sent to a phone that nobody can access.

And here's the part I keep thinking about:

We were so focused on teaching our parents how to use this wonderful new technology that we didn't always think about what would happen to their digital lives when they passed away.

Maybe that's something we need to change.

Not because we want to think about losing the people we love.

But because we love them.

We want their photographs.

Their writing.

Their memories.

Their creative work.

The little pieces of their lives that might otherwise disappear into a locked account.

Digital estate planning may sound terribly modern and complicated.

But perhaps it is becoming as ordinary as telling someone where you keep your important papers.

Who should be your digital contact?

Where are your photographs?

What accounts matter?

What should be preserved?

What should be closed?

And who needs to know?

We have spent decades learning how to protect our digital lives.

Now we need to learn how to leave them behind safely.

Because our parents were among the first generations to bring their entire lives into a little computer they carried in their pockets.

And someday, someone will have to figure out what happens to all those little computers — and everything inside them.

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