Estate Planning in a Digital World: What is Digital Property?

Digital technology plays such an integral to both our personal and professional lives that we should properly plan ahead as to managing it if something were to happen to us.
 
But what is digital property?
 
Digital Property is any information that exists in digital form, either online or on an electronic storage device, and includes the information necessary to access the digital asset.
 
It includes data, Internet accounts, and other rights in the digital world, such as contractual rights and intellectual property rights. Data are the files and information stored and used by computers (such as e–mails, word processing documents, spreadsheets, pictures, audio files, and movies). This data may be stored locally on a computer’s hard drive or on removable media, or it may be stored remotely and accessed over the Internet.
 
Here’s a more specific list of what's included in your digital estate:

• Physical Devices: Computers, hard drives, flash drives, tablets, smartphones, digital music players, e-readers, digital cameras
• Online accounts for emails, social media, shopping, photo and video sharing, video gaming, online storage, your blogs.  For example, Skype, FaceTime, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Pinterest are included in one’s digital estate.
• Domain Names
• Any information that is stored electronically, whether online, in the cloud, or a physical device.  This includes text history, photos, call history, location data, videos, e-books, medical records, and legal documents.  Video Gaming Accounts are also considered digital property that includes in-game or in-app purchases, account information, avatars, and game history
• Intellectual property, including copyrighted materials and trademarks – This will include pictures, music, movies, literary works, Web pages, computer code and other creative works
• Websites that generate revenue for you
• Accounts that hold money or manage money or sell items – Examples would be PayPal, bank accounts, loyalty rewards programs (credit card, airline, car rental, hotel), eBay, Etsy, Amazon store

With all the privacy issues and encrypted electronic data, if a person has not planned ahead, it may be difficult if not practically impossible to locate and access certain types of digital property. Make sure you have at least a list of your accounts, a designation of who would manage and have access to it, and plan for how you would want it managed. 
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