Agreeing what happens to your accounts one day
Name a trusted person and write down where your accounts live.
Your email, your photos, your bank sign in. Every one of them is locked, on purpose. That protection does not switch off when your family needs in.
Most large companies now offer a way to name somebody in advance. Apple calls it a legacy contact. Google has an inactive account setting. Facebook has a legacy contact too.
These do not hand over your passwords. They arrange, ahead of time, for a named person to be given access under set conditions. That is far kinder than leaving a locked phone behind.
The second half is a plain piece of paper. Not a list of passwords. A list of where things are: which email, which bank, which photo service. Keep it wherever you keep your important documents.
Key points
- Big companies let you name a trusted person in advance.
- That is not the same as sharing a password.
- Keep a written page of which services you use.
- Leave the passwords off that page.
- Do it once, calmly, and tell one person it exists.
What to remember
- Naming somebody takes a few minutes and saves your family weeks.
- Arrangements made inside the account keep working. Shared passwords quietly expire.
- A map of where things live is safe to leave out. A list of keys is not.
Try this
Open the security settings on your main email account and see whether a legacy or inactive account option exists there.
Practice: Agreeing what happens to your accounts one day. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.