Passing Down Passwords: How Older Adults Approach Postmortem Account Access and Digital Estate Planning

Paper Title

Passing Down Passwords: How Older Adults Approach Postmortem Account Access and Digital Estate Planning

Publication Info

• Topic area: Digital estate planning among older adults
• Keywords: Digital estate planning, older adults, postmortem account access, password sharing, legacy features, digital assets, estate management, online accounts, inheritance, two-factor authentication

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Traditional estate planning practices do not adequately address the transfer and management of online accounts, leaving heirs without access to digital assets or accounts tied to financial and sentimental value.
• Significance: As digital accounts increasingly hold monetary, sentimental, and practical value, ensuring postmortem access to these accounts is critical to reduce burdens on heirs and executors.
• Motivation and related work: Prior research has focused on digital legacy (data persistence and sentimental value) but has largely overlooked digital estates (accounts tied to financial or practical assets). This paper addresses this gap by focusing on older adults, who are more likely to have engaged in estate planning but may face unique challenges with digital tools.

Solution

• Proposed approach: Investigating older adults’ practices, challenges, and needs for digital estate planning through semi-structured interviews.
• Novelty:
  1. Focus on older adults’ digital estate planning practices, including financial and practical accounts.
  2. Identification of barriers, such as reliance on non-technical methods and challenges with technical tools.
  3. Recommendations for improving digital estate planning through expert guidance, technical standardization, and leveraging traditional estate planning practices.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Conducted 21 semi-structured interviews with U.S.-based adults aged 60+.
  • Explored participants’ motivations, practices, and barriers in digital estate planning.
  • Analyzed themes using thematic analysis to derive insights and recommendations.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • All participants prioritized financial accounts for postmortem access, while non-financial accounts were often overlooked unless they held significant sentimental or practical value.
  • Most participants relied on informal, ad-hoc methods like pen-and-paper or digital files for password management.
  • Two-factor authentication (2FA) dependencies were often overlooked in planning.
  • Participants expressed interest in technical tools like legacy features but were hindered by concerns about usability and security.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • Highlights the gap between older adults’ current practices and their desired outcomes for digital estate planning.
  • Identifies specific needs for tools and guidance tailored to older adults.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Interviews with 21 participants (60–91 years old) from diverse backgrounds.
  • Analysis of practices, preferences, and barriers in managing digital estates.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Sample limited to older adults with a minimum net worth of $100K, potentially excluding lower-income populations.
  • Focused on U.S. context; findings may not generalize globally.
  • Future work could explore younger populations, broader demographics, and specific technical features for digital estate planning.

Summary

This study investigates how older adults in the U.S. approach digital estate planning, focusing on practices, challenges, and needs for postmortem account access. Participants prioritized financial accounts but often relied on informal methods like pen-and-paper for password sharing. Barriers included technical challenges, security concerns, and a lack of awareness of legacy features. The study recommends leveraging traditional estate planning practices, providing expert guidance, and standardizing technical tools to address these challenges. These findings highlight the need for tailored interventions to support older adults in managing their digital estates effectively.