The public is increasingly embracing digital technologies like Uber, Booking.com, Airbnb and so on. In fact, almost every service we use nowadays, offers some kind of digital platform enhancing the user experience. According to Daily Mail, the average person has at least 26 online accounts. Just think of it. Our wireless carrier, energy supplier, insurer, public transport provider, music streaming service, dating service, news provider etc. They all offer a personalized digital user experience that requires consumers to enter personal credentials.
There is nothing wrong, or bad about this trend. However, this changes when you pass away. Because what happens to all these accounts and subscriptions after you die? Relatives are probably not aware of all the accounts the deceased person possessed but they do want to cancel them on short term. Understandably, it is no longer desired to have the dating profile visible to the world and monthly fees of subscriptions can become a real financial burden.
So how can you complete the circle of your digital life, after you already completed the circle of your life on earth? Until recently, relatives had the extremely time-consuming and emotionally painful task of notifying every single company the deceased person was associated with, about his or her passing away.
Ironically, there now is a digital solution to the problem created by digitalization. A company called ‘’Closure’’ notifies all companies in its network about a person’s passing away. It takes care of shutting down online accounts and cancels all of the subscriptions. The only thing you have to do, is subscribe.
Sources:
Daily Mail. No wonder hackers have it easy: Most of us now have 26 different online accounts – but only five passwords. Derived from: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2174274/No-wonder-hackers-easy-Most-26-different-online-accounts–passwords.html
This is a great concept that I never heard about. I wondered, how does it work? So I checked out their website https://www.closure.nl/hoe-het-werkt/ and figured the following. If your relatives use the service after you pass, they have to indicate which services you had a subscription to. I can imagine that they do not always know that.. The other option is that you arrange it yourself before you pass. I’m guessing that is the only viable option. I’m thinking ‘Closure’ should be offered as an additional service of a life insurance policy if they want to increase their number of customers. Although I’m still a bit doubtful about the chances that people actually use this, I’m curious to see if the idea will catch on.