Digital legacy – What happens to our data after death?

In cooperation with the Legal Research Unit at DFN, a 90-minute zoom lecture on the topic “Digital legacy – What happens to our data after death?” was held at the TH Nuremberg on 23 November 2020. Marten Tiessen, research associate at DFN’s Legal Research Centre, gave the lecture to an audience of more than 60 people. As part of a series of lectures on the topic of “Elder Care”, the event was addressed to all employees and students of the university who were interested in the topic either professionally or privately.

After the speaker gave a brief overview of the special legal challenges of digital inheritance, he illustrated the problem with the help of the lengthy Facebook proceedings, which ultimately ended up twice before the Federal Court of Justice. Subsequently, the question was discussed to what extent the reasons for the judgement can be transferred to other services. The final topic was the different precautionary measures that service providers or testators can take to prevent, simplify or otherwise arrange the transfer of the digital estate.

The positive response and interested enquiries from participants underline the increasing practical importance of the subject.