After a death, families often discover a digital life they knew little about: accounts still sending notifications, subscriptions still being charged and photos they cannot access. Here is what happens, service by service, and what loved ones can do.

The general rule in France

Accounts are not passed to heirs in the same way as furniture or a bank account. Contracts with platforms are personal and end at death. Loved ones can, however, request account closure, and sometimes access to certain data, by providing a death certificate. The 2016 law also allows people to leave instructions about their data during their lifetime. Without instructions, loved ones do what they can, one service at a time.

Facebook and Instagram

An account can become a memorialised account (“Remembering”), at the request of a loved one with supporting documentation, or be permanently deleted. During your lifetime, you can designate a legacy contact to manage the memorial page. Without a legacy contact, nobody will be able to make further changes.

Google: Gmail, Photos, Drive and YouTube

Google offers Inactive Account Manager: you choose a period of inactivity, such as three months, after which designated people receive all or some of your data, and the account is then deleted. It is the most comprehensive arrangement on the market and takes ten minutes to set up. Without it, the family must make a formal request, a lengthy process that rarely results in access to emails.

Apple: iCloud, photos and notes

Since iOS 15, anyone can designate a Legacy Contact. They receive an access key and, with the death certificate, can recover photos, notes and documents for three years. Without a Legacy Contact, Apple does not transfer anything: data is deleted when the account is closed.

Online banks, digital banks and money pools

Bank accounts follow inheritance law: they are frozen after a death and settled by a notary, or directly by the bank for small estates. Remember money pools, payment accounts and cryptocurrency, which are often overlooked because they do not appear on statements.

Subscriptions and automatic payments

Payments continue until someone cancels them. One of the most useful things you can leave your loved ones is a list: streaming, newspapers, software, storage, gym memberships and insurance. Without one, the family discovers subscriptions gradually through statements, often over many months.

What about the messages you wanted to leave?

None of these platforms is designed to deliver a personal message after death. A Gmail draft will never be sent; a note on a locked phone will never be read. This calls for a space designed for that purpose: content prepared in advance, a named recipient for each item, and delivery initiated by a person after the death has been verified.

That is what DUNELIA does, and nothing more: a private space to write, record and upload photos for specific people, passed on after verification, never automatically.

A checklist for loved ones

  1. Obtain several copies of the death certificate.
  2. List known accounts, starting with emails and bank statements.
  3. Request closure or memorialisation, one service at a time.
  4. Cancel subscriptions.
  5. Check whether the person left any instructions or messages somewhere.