Technology has been advancing in such a way that it becomes very involved in our own lives. And it is that, if in the same way people must put their lives in order at the end of their days, the same happens with their digital life, since we could find ourselves with some other problem in the future. Have you thought about what will happen to your money when you die? And with your Facebook account?
Chronology of a death on Facebook
have you died
- No: keep posting kitty pics
- Yes: did you decide what to do with your account when you die?
- No: Your account is still online. your friends and family They should inform Facebook of your death
- Yes: did you set legacy contact?
- No: you have decided that your account is deleted immediately when you die
- Yes: Your legacy contact will confirm your death and manage your commemorative account
legacy contacts
The idea that Facebook proposes is quite reasonable. The day you go to the other world, your personal social network account will still be active, and it will be very strange that people receive notifications of your birthday (or even worse, people congratulate you effusively) when you went to the other world. neighborhood for quite some time.
For this reason, they have created legacy contacts, which is nothing more than a function that will allow another person to take control of your account and manage notifications and news that occur since your death. But you will have to decide for yourself.
How to establish a legacy contact
Do you want to leave the final decision to a trusted person? That is your legacy contact. The legacy contact will be the person who decides what to do with your account at the time of your death. This person cannot access your profile, nor post for you, nor access your private messages, since his only function is to choose one of the two options that will be available: delete your account or convert it into a commemorative one.
To choose a legacy contact you will have to do the following:
- Enter Facebook and access the Settings options
- In the General section, look for the Memorial Account Settings option
- There you can decide who will be your legacy contact
Its functions will be the following:
- Manage tribute posts on your profile, including removing posts and tags and deciding who can post and see the posts
- Request deletion of your account
- Respond to new friend requests
- Update your profile and cover photos
Commemorative account or delete profile?
The decision to choose one option or another should not always rest with the legacy contact. You yourself can previously request that your account be deleted when you die (Facebook will find out from friends and family as we will see later), but in the event that you do not choose this option, your account will automatically become commemorative at the time it is reported. of your death, and it will be there when your legacy contact has to manage your profile with the functions mentioned above.
To set your profile to automatically delete as soon as Facebook knows you're dead, select the last option that appears in the Memorial Account settings panel.
What is a commemorative account used for?
The idea of ​​the memorial account is to create a place where friends and family can share memories around you. To differentiate a normal account from a commemorative account, the profile username will be accompanied by the name "In Memory", thus indicating that that person has passed away and that said account is maintained as a meeting place for friends and family.
In said profile, previous publications can be seen, and depending on the level of privacy established, friends will be able to publish publications shared with the deceased on the board. All these points must be taken into account when understanding a commemorative bead:
- Any content shared by that person (such as photos or posts) will remain on Facebook and be visible on Facebook to the selected audience it was originally shared with.
- Commemorative profiles will not appear in People You May Know suggestions, birthday reminders, or in advertisements.
- No one can log into a memorial account.
- Memorial accounts without a legacy contact cannot be changed.
- Pages with a single admin whose account has been commemorated will be removed from the social network if Facebook receives a valid commemorative account request.
How to notify Facebook of the death of a family member or friend
If the deceased did not leave their account configured with any of the steps described above, the decision to commemorate the account or directly delete it may rest with family and close friends. In this case, users who have some kind of relationship with the deceased must contact Facebook to give the instructions and information necessary to act accordingly.
If you want to request the deletion of an account, you should take the following into account:
- To guarantee your relationship with the deceased, you must present some of these documents:
- Power of attorney
- Birth certificate
- last will and testament
- Declaration of assets
- And to confirm his death, one of these documents will be needed:
- Death certificate
- Obituary
- obituary
- With all that, complete the Fill in the form.
If you want to make the account commemorative, you should keep the following in mind:
- In this case, the only thing Facebook asks for is some type of document that certifies the death of the person, so you must send one of these proofs:
- Obituary
- obituary
- Death certificate
- Complete it Fill in the form.
What about disabled people?
In the event that you need to delete an account of a disabled person, you must follow the necessary steps to delete an account, finally indicating that you want to delete the account because the person is disabled for medical reasons. But you will have to take into account some details:
- For a child under 14 years of age: In theory, a child under 14 years of age should not have a Facebook account, since the social network prevents the creation of new profiles for people under that age. Therefore, said account should not exist, and if it does exist, it should be reported.
- For someone over 14 years old: Complete the form and wait for Facebook to ask you for more information related to the case.
Those who are in prison or undergoing rehabilitation will not be considered incapacitated, and therefore cannot request account deletion at any time. Unless the requesting person is a member of law enforcement, in which case they must contact us through this form.