What happens to your digital property when you pass away?
A morbid topic, I know; but it is a growing question
people have to consider with the plethora of online accounts,
email addresses, Facebook pages, and other social media information
we all have on the Internet. It was the topic of an NPR radio
program involving LegacyLocker.com, a new website where you can
store login credentials and inform relatives what should be
done with your online assets. That's right, there is a
company that will safely secure your digital property and allow
access to your loved ones. So when you are gone - but not
forgotten - you can ensure that the persons you want access to your
emails has it.
This has become an issue elevated to national radio coverage
because wills typically do not protect your digital assets, and
most web sites have little or no provisions for a friend or
relative to transfer the account information. After listening
to the program, I considered all the logins to banks, brokers,
service providers, my Facebook page, LinkedIn account, Twitter
conversations, my photos and music stored online, etc. I'm
not sure I need LegacyLocker yet, but I do realize that I need to
plan, collect, organize and secure this information.
Then I considered the small and mid-market companies I work with
on a daily basis. Typically these are family-owned and
operated, sometimes with online personal and business accounts
co-mingled and serving dual purposes. What happens when the
company founder or owner leaves this earth? Does the
progression plan include access to the company Facebook page or
LinkedIn account? Is the login to a partner's co-branded
online service in a secure place or would you need access to their
email account to get the forgotten password? Is there one
place where accounts and login credentials to online assests are
stored; if so, how is it protected?
At TwinEngines, we built our company Intranet on the Microsoft
Office SharePoint Server platform. Besides being our
repository for HR information, company work documents and our
knowlegbase to support our business, we have created a place
to keep account information for our vendors, suppliers, partners
and our social media sites. Our customer extranet built on
the same SharePoint technology, stores information about each
customer and the services we provide. All this information is
secured with login access tied to our Active Directory accounts,
and backed up nightly as part of our database backup process.
So as employees come and go or change job positions, we manage our
Active Directoy network accounts and access to company digital
assests as part of our new employee orientation, termination and
job transfer processes. Access to our digital assets stored
in SharePoint are protected without any other special efforts.
Are your company's digital assets protected when key employees
leave for another company or pass away? It's not a pleasant
thought, but one that has to be considered. Do you have a
plan, and what technology do you have to store
information that is safe and secure? Fortunately, the
technology piece to the puzzle may be closer than you think. A lot
of small and mid-market companies do not realize that they own
Microsoft SharePoint already, since it is bundled with their
Microsoft Server software. For larger companies SharePoint is
included with their enterprise agreement with
Microsoft.
Read more information about SharePoint here.