Digital Remains and Post-mortem Privacy in the UK: What Do Users Want?

Abstract

The information age has led to extensive personal data aggregation, posing various challenges for posthumous privacy and digital remains. Users are often unaware of tools for managing their digital remains, laws in the area are predominantly silent or inadequate, and the scholarship has argued for appropriate legal and technological solutions. Our study of 1,766 adult UK residents’ attitudes, the first in the UK, reveals a desire for control over digital remains but low awareness and utilisation of existing tools. These phenomena are known in the literature as ‘the posthumous privacy paradox’ and ‘the inverted posthumous privacy paradox’—our data and findings offer strong evidence for future policy and law reform. Based on our findings, complemented by earlier theoretical and doctrinal research, our recommendations include law reforms in data protection, recognition of online tools for managing digital remains and a more comprehensive UK and EU-wide reform that encompasses several relevant areas of law.