Ethical, legal and security implications of digital legacies on social media

Abstract

The internet has transformed the way that humans interact not only online, but also in real life. Through social networking sites and other community based online sites a person can amass multiple online identities through their active presence on different online platforms that can affect the user in the real world [2]. These identities can be home to different types of digital artifacts in the form of pictures, posts, or videos and are attached to a specific user. The combination of these identities can be used to create a digital narrative about the user which can then be used to create a timeline of the user’s life and their relationships. The content of this digital narrative is the property of the user that created it and can be considered their digital legacy. It is up to the user to determine how their digital legacy will be handled after their real-world death.