Lost in space

Cyberspace's heir-tight security gets welcome hack

Cyberspace's heir-tight security is getting a welcome hack. Social networks like Facebook and other online companies enforce privacy rules even after account holders die. That can leave e-books, emails and other digital remains beyond loved ones' reach. Passwords in wills can help, but the forgetful deserve protection, too. A new Delaware law is a start.

Logging into someone else's account is a cyberspace sin. The likes of Twitter forbid it and promise never to reveal a password. That can be reassuring in an era of hacks on Home Depot customer data and naked celebrity photo caches.

But these secure cyberspace vaults can also be a financial and emotional headache. Americans valued their music, financial records and other online property at some $55,000 in 2011, when internet security firm McAfee researched the matter.

Bequeathing these online assets is tricky, though. Facebook in 2012 blocked a British model's estate from accessing her account, and Yahoo wouldn't give a deceased marine's emails to his father in 2005 without a court order.

Some companies are wising up. Users of Google services can tell the search giant in advance to transfer inactive accounts. They need permission, though, to convey the rights to purchases on Google Play. Twitter and Facebook will deactivate or even delete a dead person's account, but only if certain people request it and submit a slew of documents. Access is still prohibited.

Delaware last month gave beneficiaries some help. It enacted a law that hands control of digital assets to any executor of a deceased owner's will. That should make passing along emails and other data easier. But the law goes only so far.

It won't override, say, the typical iTunes agreement, which grants licenses to music that can't be transferred. And a 1986 federal law bars disclosure of digital content without permission. A court may have to decide whether that includes emails.

Digital customers could, of course, create trusts for making purchases and include heirs as the beneficiaries. That might avoid the third-party transfer issue, but is overly complex. They could also just give friends their sign-in information.

Such foresight aside, online users could use a federal law similar to Delaware's. That might at least allow them to rest in digital peace.