Legacy Locker

We’ve been receiving a lot of questions lately as to why Legacy Locker doesn’t “guarantee” user data against loss, corruption, theft or other shenanigans.

That got us thinking – Why don’t we guarantee our members’ content?  The easy answer is that our lawyers told us not to because it would expose us to all kinds of liability.  So, we never really put a lot of thought into any such guarantees. But then we asked ourselves: Should we guarantee? Is it the “right” thing to do?  Or are we just being paranoid and trying to cover our…ass..ets…in the event disaster strikes?

Aside from the legal implications, any security breach would be disastrous.  We pride ourselves on the security apparatus we have already put into place.  Practically speaking, it is far superior to what most other websites currently employ.  But what about other websites we all use every day?  We depend on them to ensure our data is protected, and they depend on our trust.   This begs the question: Do any of the major websites guarantee our stored information?

For banking institutions and credit card companies, it is good business to reimburse their customers if someone hacks into an account, steals an ATM card or “phishes” credit card numbers off an unsecure connection.  These companies understand that they MUST do something to instill trust in the system.  That’s why they agree to make you whole again: not because they’re legally liable, but because it’s just good business. But the question remains (FDIC Insurance aside): Are they legally responsible for reinstating your trust and funds? I thought so until I read the fine print.

I was surprised to discover that not one of the major websites (Google, Facebook, Yahoo, Citibank, etc.) assumes liability for the content you store online; the banks don’t either.  All have pretty strong language in their Terms of Service that eliminate their liability from just about anything and everything (including Yahoo’s disclaimer about seizures that may result from looking at the monitor for too long).

Essentially, they’re all the same.  It’s fairly boilerplate language that encompasses two main themes: Full disclaimer of warranties and complete limitation of liability.

Disclaimer of Warranties – this means that the site is provided to you “as is” and the user has no reasonable expectation that the website will function properly, protect your stored data or be free from error.  It’s similar to buying a piece of property with a quitclaim deed. No warranties or guarantees. You’re buying it how it is and have no right to protest if it doesn’t work to your expectations.

Limitation of Liability – When using these sites, you are agreeing they will not be liable for just about any type of damage or loss you may incur.  These limitations extend to loss of profit, goodwill or business reputation, or other intangible losses.

Facebook is a different kind of animal than other more traditional storage websites.  Specifically, they do not guarantee that User Content you post on the site will not be viewed by “unauthorized persons” and it is not responsible for circumvention of any privacy or security measures contained on the site.  You should also know that even after you deactivate your account, your content may be cached and archived, thus still viewable.

So although online content is rarely, if ever, subject to an all-inclusive guarantee, our security infrastructure is superior to best practices because, above all, we respect our clients and their information, and have utilized every known strategy in protecting their sensitive data.

Below are links to some major websites’ Terms of Service regarding protection of your valuable data.

We would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Gregg Delman
Director of Business Development

Facebook

Google

Yahoo!

Citibank Online

ING

Lastpass.com

Please note that the material contained in this blog is not legal advice and is not to be relied upon in a court of law. Furthermore, any federal tax advice contained in this communication, including attachments and enclosures, is not intended or written to be used, and may not be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding tax-related penalties under Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any tax related matters addressed herein.

An interesting article went live on the NYT Gadgetwise blog yesterday about a subject near and dear to our business; specifically the piece was about dealing with the digital afterlife, and what is referred to as “morning after” messaging.  The article referred to Legacy Locker (and a few other sites) and stated “many of them charge an annual fee and there’s no guarantee that the companies will outlast your lifetime.”   Following that brusque dismissal, the focus of the piece is on the opinion of Adele McAlear, a marketing and social media expert.

Adele raises many excellent questions regarding digital life and the importance of planning for the future of your digital assets. She also provides several suggestions on how to plan for that future.  However, we believe that while the advice is good in theory, the practical implications are fairly lacking, here are some specific examples.

From Gadget Wise:

“Ms. McAlear recommends leaving your final instructions as an encrypted file on your computer or place them in a sealed envelope or safety deposit box. ‘Just make sure that your digital executor knows where to look and will remember the password,’ she said.”

This sounds like a great idea – except that practically speaking, there’s no easy way to do any of those things.  An encrypted file on a computer is subject to security breaches, hard drive failures, accidental deletion, and a host of other issues.  And finding a digital executor who “knows where to look and will remember the password…”?  Sounds good, but it’s missing the “How, exactly, would this happen?”  It’s a great suggestion with no practical way to execute it.

In my case for instance, nobody knows how my computer’s folder structure works except me.  My PC is personal and private, both by intention and by happenstance.  By the same token, I wouldn’t be able to find anything on my wife’s computer unless she tells me where to look. Also, it’s entirely possible that I don’t want a single individual to administer all of my accounts.  Maybe my wife should handle my Facebook and my email accounts, but my close friend and business partner should administer my blog or sell my domain names.

Essentially, what this post is suggesting is precisely what Legacy Locker does, only without the infrastructure or processes, and without any security, backup, redundancy, or ease of access. Consider:

• Legacy Locker lets you add as many individual accounts (“digital assets”) as you like, including things like your email addresses, your Flickr and Facebook, even the password to your PC
• Each of those assets can be assigned to different beneficiaries who will administer those accounts, and each asset can include accompanying instructions like “please delete my profile here” or “please contact all my friends to let them know when the funeral will take place”
• Legacy Locker has secure encryption and redundant storage for these assets to make sure no gets access to them until they’re supposed to
• Only the information specified will go to a given beneficiary, and you can select as many beneficiaries as you like
• Information and assets are automatically delivered after the account holder’s death is confirmed.  That’s as opposed to a letter in a safety deposit box that might lie unopened, or an encrypted file that’s likely to stay encrypted because someone forgot the password

The post further suggests that everyone

“… keep an inventory of all your log-ins and passwords for all your accounts, such as e-mail, social networks, photo- and video-sharing sites, blogs, Web sites, forums, online gaming, Skype, IM, PayPal, eBay and so on.”

My question is, where should they keep that stuff?  In an excel spreadsheet on your hard drive?  That’s subject to theft, failure, corrupted files, loss, accidental deletion, and numerous other dangers.  Write them down on scraps of paper and keep them in your safety deposit box?  That’s incredibly inefficient, hard to update,  and hard to keep track of (I can’t even think of the last time I went to my bank’s branch during work hours – can you?).

The post also tells us to

“Be sure to specify what you would like to be done with your digital legacy. Do you want your accounts closed? Status changed? Avatars removed?”

Again, while we agree that this is the right thing to do, we think Legacy Locker is the simplest, most straightforward way to actually get it done.  Our service allows you to, in a simple, step-by-step manner, methodically add all of your digital assets to your locker, create special instructions, and specify the appropriate recipient to a given asset.  Without Legacy Locker, a person concerned with their digital accounts after their passing have a lot of hoops to jump through in order to ensure that:

1. their digital assets are accounted for
2. there’s a good way for someone to actually receive those assets
3. the storage and eventual transfer of that information is secure, redundant and up to date

Towards the end, an additional suggestion reads:

“You would do best to choose someone who is Internet savvy and understands how social networks and online accounts function…”

Once again, that’s a great suggestion.  But those people don’t exactly grow on trees.  Not everyone has access to a trusted person who who is a social media expert and techno-whiz, and is also a person with whom you trust your entire digital life. In some ways, this is like telling everyone that instead of seeing a doctor professionally, they should be friends with someone who has medical training and have them treat you when you’re ill.  Or to be friends with someone who’s good at “fixing stuff” rather than see a mechanic when your car starts to spurt smoke from under the hood.

We live in a society of specialization, where professionals become educated and experts in their respective fields.  Legacy Locker is a team of experts who specialize in the best, most secure way to transfer digital information in the event of death or disability.  Trying to ad-hoc a process for transferring critical information is likely to result in loss of data, security failure, and / or a serious imposition on someone you’re trying to shoe-horn into a role that may not be comfortable for them.  Legacy Locker allows you to break parts of your digital legacy into discrete chunks, store and transfer those securely, and apportion them to the people most appropriate to a given task.

We started Legacy Locker for a reason.  There simply was no good way to ensure that the content, accounts, information and other paraphernalia of digital life will be managed or transferred in the event of your death.  We agree with every one of the concerns raised in the NYT article – it’s precisely because of those same concerns that we started this company.  We take this problem very seriously, and we work hand in hand with estate planning attorneys and other estate planning professionals to ensure that we are in lock step with the practical realities of digital estate planning. These are the right questions.  But without Legacy Locker, they’re not the right answers.

Google launched  new features with their Google Health service today (you can read the details here).  Obviously there is much inefficiency in the field of online medical documentation and healthcare issues (privacy rights, etc), but it inevitable that the Internet will be a major intermediary for the future of healthcare. Your vital information will need to be very well protected and respected, but at the same time allow healthcare institutions and loved ones to easily and securely access this critical data.

Google Health’s new features are a great complement to an existing comprehensive estate plan and your Legacy Locker account.  The first step in any estate plan is to discuss your end of life documentation and make sure your primary care givers are aware of your wishes.  However, once engaged in the process of thinking about this difficult subject matter it’s important to look at all the issues your legacy may create.  That is why we feel that Google health is just one important aspect to consider when safeguarding your online self.

For those of you who do try out Google’s Health services, you should know that this account can be incorporated into your Legacy Locker thereby creating a beneficiary for this account in the event of disability.  Currently, Google Health does not provide the ability to share this information post mortem. While there are some sharing features and services built into the new Google Health feature, our analysis is that it might not be enough for the variety of types of needs of our customers. After all, the whole point of an estate plan is to protect all of your different assets with all sorts of different types of directives and needs.

Overall we’re very excited to see companies as big as Google beginning to take a look at the concept of digital services that extend deeply into personal lives. So to our customers, who have a lot of content secured in your Legacy Locker, take a look at Google Health. There’s a lot you can do with it, just don’t forget to make it part of your Locker while you’re at it!

We are constantly seeking to improve our service and add value for our users, and today we have two new features to announce: secure file storage and Video Legacy Letters.  We think these are important enhancements to the service, and they are being offered at no additional charge to our existing or new customers!

1. File Storage - you can now keep a secure, encrypted copy of your most critical documents in your Locker.  Examples of useful documents to store include your will, a property deed, stock certificates, and other “can’t lose” files. Each account holder (of a premium or lifetime account) can store as many as 10 files, of up to 5MB each (we plan to increase the number of files in the future).
2. Video Letters – in addition to written Legacy Letters, you can now upload video messages as well.  Each user (with a premium or lifetime account) can upload as many as 3 videos, and each file can be up to 20MB in size.  Videos will be stored securely and individually encrypted, ensuring that only the intended recipient will be able to retrieve them, when the time comes.  In the future we intend to allow direct recording from within the site, and will enable more than 3 videos per user.

Having a secure, digital copy of important documents (like your will for instance) can be extremely valuable.  And Legacy Locker can be accessed and updated from anywhere in the world, so if you want to retrieve your document or update with a new copy, it’s easy to do from any computer, any time.

Legacy Letters offer a means for communicating with loved ones (like a spouse, a child, or a dear friend) one last time.  Video is an even more personal medium than text-based letters, and allows your loved ones to see you one more time, hear your voice, and remember you the way you want them to.  Each video is safely and securely stored, and can only be retrieved by the intended recipient.

Both of the new features are only available for paid account holders.

We think that these features add value to our service, and we’re excited to introduce the new functionality.  We just launched two months ago, and we have many more ideas for new feature sets and tools.  If you have ideas feel free to pass them on to us, we would love to hear from you.  You can comment here on the blog, or send us an email at support [at] legacylocker [dot] com.  We promise we read every email that comes in, and we get some of our best ideas from our customers.  We thank you sincerely for your business.

-The Legacy Locker Team