Ghosts of Data Past: What happens to our data when we're gone?

As autumn arrives in Seoul, the air is drying out, and the nights are becoming colder. The apple cider is warming up, as are the layers of clothing we're wearing in preparation for the impending cold. It's safe to say Halloween has arrived! It's the season of ghosts, tricks, and treats. After viewing several Halloween posts of people dressed as ghosts, monsters, and goblins, refreshing my social media stream while working on my Google sheets document, I became curious about Ghost Data - the data we leave behind when we leave this earth. At the expense of sounding nerdy, Halloween did make me wonder 'What happens to the years of threaded email stored in Outlook servers, photos and videos on our Instagram and TikTok profiles, and folders with hundreds of files? in Google Drive when we finally die?' 

The horrors of Ghost Data

To think about it, we upload our entire lives online, leaving digital footprints all over the place, with no idea who will control our data or how they will manage our digital remains from a legal, ethical, and cultural standpoint. When it comes to ghost data, there has already been a fair amount of controversy. Facebook's algorithm has often suggested that users invite deceased relatives to parties or send birthday greetings [1]. Another example from the fall of 2006 in California (coincidentally on the eve of Halloween) involves a young girl named Nikki Catsouras who was involved in a horrific car accident. Soon later, her images went viral on the internet. Employees of the California Highway Patrol (those who discovered her body) emailed pictures to their relatives and friends on Halloween just for shock value. The fiasco caused the relatives of the deceased girl to battle for their right to be forgotten [2].

It is perhaps unsurprising that every company's terms and conditions regarding utilizing our data contain tiny print. According to Forbes [3], when it comes to digital collections, most digital media services (Spotify, iTunes, Google, and so on) declare that we, the users, are only acquiring a license to use the media rather than purchasing it. And that license is essentially an agreement between two parties that expires when we pass away. And here's the best part, if you decide to give those digital assets to your relative, legally, it would be treated as 'online piracy.' With the recent rise of NFTs, whose market has experienced dramatic growth, with numbers of the total daily volume exchanged surpassing 10 million US dollars [4] in March 2021, a whopping 150 times of what it was just eight months ago. The most money someone has spent on a non-fungible token is the US $69.3 million [5]. With such heavy investments in digital assets, we should treat them no different than our car or house. 

What we can do now

Thankfully, big tech offers some relief for ghost data. The first thing to do on a personal level, if you are using a Google account, is to set up an Inactive Account Manager [6] or if you are using a Facebook account, make sure to create a legacy account [7]. Similar requests can be submitted to LinkedIn [8], YouTube [9], TikTok [10], Instagram [11], and Twitter [12]. 

Another measure that we can take is creating a password emergency kit. Many password manager services offer this; however, I prefer the old-fashioned way of writing down my passwords in a diary. 

As an added security measure, we need to be mindful of the content we share on social media and its impact in the future. Being aware of the potential consequences will make us more careful and selective about the events we want to share digitally. Lastly, we can already use services [13] that provide a way out and help us with our digital privacy after our death.

What we can do in future

If not disposed of properly, they can use the data linked to us in hazardous ways (the grim episode of Black Mirror comes to my mind [14]). So, what can the world do about it? Keeping the Halloween spirit alive (no pun intended), one possible outcome is a digital will. In the future, more stringent and thoughtful legislation around how they should use our online data after we die must come in place. Incidents like that of Nikki Catsouras have been a milestone, helping shape some of the current GDPR laws, such as the "Right to be forgotten" (Article 17, Right to Erasure) [15]. 

An excellent research study on this topic comes from the University of British Columbia [16], where the lead researcher created 12 design concepts for preparing your data before death [17]. These include a "Generation Cloud" that will allow families to upload data into cloud storage collectively, and upon death, they can easily transfer the data to other family members; and the self-destructing time limit on the uploaded data (say 50 years from the date of upload). 

It is time that we, people working in the data industry, shape the culture of our industry that contrives a discussion around ghost data. It mandates big tech and governments to create policies and laws around handling our data after we are no more. Let's take this Halloween as an opportunity to trick these data ghosts and treat our online privacy.