Designate a Legacy Contact to Manage your Facebook Page After You Die

Facebook is finally giving users more control over their digital content after death.

This month, Facebook announced they will allow users to select a Legacy Contact, an executor to manage their Facebook page after death.

Previously, after a death, Facebook would turn a user’s profile into a memorial page, but there were limited options for how family or friends could manage and use that page. Now, Facebook is giving users more control, by not only allowing Legacy Contacts access into the memorial page, but also giving them limited control.

With the new changes, Facebook will allow the designated Legacy Contact to:

• Log in to the memorial page
• Accept or deny new friend requests
• Change the profile and cover photo
• Write a memorial post on the timeline

Users also have the additional options of:

• Foregoing a memorial page and deleting their Facebook account after death
• Allowing the Legacy Contact to download an archive of all public photos, posts, and profile information

While more control of digital assets after death is necessary, privacy can still be a concern. To combat those concerns, Facebook has made sure that a user’s Legacy Contact will not have the ability to download private information from a Facebook profile (think private messages or photos), or write posts as the deceased.

This change is great news for your digital assets. With large companies like Google, Yahoo, and now Facebook giving you more control over your digital assets, the pressure is on for other companies to step up and do the same.

It’s your content, and you should control what happens to it, even after you’re gone.
Want to select your Legacy Contact?

Here’s how:
Open your Settings
Choose Security
Choose Legacy Contact
Type in the name of a Facebook friend who you’d like to designate as your Legacy Contact
OR
Check the box under Account Deletion if you’d like your account to be deleted upon your death.
Check the box under Data Archive Permission if you’d like to allow your Legacy Contact to download an Archive of your public Facebook information.