NCSB Journal Spring 2026

Logging Off with a Legacy: Planning for Your Digital Afterlife

B Y B . J O S E P H C A U S E Y J R . A N D L U K E A . C O N N O R

A person’s legacy used to be measured in acres and bank balances. Now? It might be hiding behind a password, stored in the cloud, earning ad revenue on YouTube, or waiting in your Venmo history. For the modern estate planner, it’s no longer enough to ask about bank accounts and property deeds. We must now ask: What’s their Apple ID? Who has the crypto keys? Is there a Google Photos archive, or worse, a r a

TikTok account with a following?

hapabapa/istockphoto.com

Imagine this: your client passes away with thousands of photos in iCloud and a mone tized Etsy store… but nobody knows the password. Now the executor is locked out, the heirs are frustrated, and valuable memo ries and income vanish in a puff of digital smoke. The result? Executors and loved ones are left navigating password-protected accounts, uncertain legal authority, and user agree ments that read like they were written by robots. Sentimental memories are lost, and income streams are shut down or deleted with no recourse. In short, you’re not just

leaving behind assets, you’re leaving behind a mess. Estate planning professionals can no longer afford to ignore the growing category of digital property. North Carolina’s adop tion of the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA)

provides a legal pathway for fiduciaries, but it’s not always smooth. Platform policies, pri vacy laws, and rigid terms of service can still block access, even when a client’s wishes are clear. RUFADAA helps, but it doesn’t solve everything. The law is still playing catch-up

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THE NORTH CAROLINA STATE BAR JOURNAL