What happens to your email account, social media profiles, cloud-stored photographs, or cryptocurrencies after your death? Do your heirs automatically gain access to these accounts? These questions are becoming increasingly significant, as a substantial part of modern life now takes place in the digital environment. In addition to traditional assets such as real estate and bank accounts, individuals frequently leave behind a digital estate comprising both personal content and assets of considerable financial value. As the legal framework has yet to fully adapt to this relatively new area, numerous unresolved issues continue to arise in practice, involving not only technical but also fundamental legal questions.
A digital estate encompasses all digital accounts, data, and rights that an individual created or used during their lifetime, including email accounts, social media profiles, photographs and documents stored in the cloud, websites, digital wallets, and cryptocurrencies. Some of these digital assets have primarily personal or sentimental value, while others constitute property with genuine economic worth. The key legal issue is whether the inheritance of digital assets also grants heirs effective access to their digital content, as legal succession and the technical ability to access online accounts do not necessarily coincide. Article 2 of the Slovenian Inheritance Act provides that property and rights belonging to an individual may be inherited.
In practice, a distinction therefore arises between the inheritance of rights and property on the one hand, and actual access to user accounts on the other. Although digital assets generally form part of the deceased’s estate, this does not mean that heirs automatically obtain passwords or the ability to log into the deceased’s accounts. This depends on the nature of the digital asset, the contractual terms of the relevant service providers, and the applicable rules governing personal data protection. This issue is particularly evident with social media platforms, where providers such as Facebook and Instagram apply different policies following a user’s death, ranging from permanent deletion of the account to its conversion into a memorial account, while access to the underlying content is not necessarily preserved.¹
The issue is even more complex in the case of cryptocurrencies, where no central authority exists that can restore access to a digital wallet. Cryptocurrencies generally form part of the deceased’s estate; however, their practical accessibility depends entirely on the availability of private keys or recovery phrases. If these credentials are unavailable, the assets may become permanently inaccessible in practice, despite continuing to exist as part of the estate in legal terms. This clearly demonstrates that inheritance as a legal institution does not necessarily guarantee the technical realisation of inherited rights.
German case law has played a pivotal role in shaping the legal concept of the digital estate. In 2018, the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof – BGH), in U.W. v. Facebook Ireland Limited (Case No. III ZR 183/17), held that a digital user account and its associated content form part of the deceased’s estate and that the user’s contractual position passes to the heirs. The Court rejected arguments that the confidentiality of communications or data protection rules would automatically prevent such a transfer. In a subsequent decision in 2020 (Case No. III ZB 30/20), the BGH further clarified that heirs must be granted access to the account to the same extent as the deceased had during their lifetime, while emphasising that they are not entitled to actively use the account on behalf of the deceased. The Court also stressed that merely providing an export of the account data in PDF format does not constitute equivalent access to the digital environment, as it does not preserve the original structure, functionality, or interactive nature of the account. In essence, the central legal question before the Court was whether a user’s right to communicate through the Facebook platform constitutes a personal right capable of succession or a strictly personal right that expires upon death. The BGH also had to determine whether heirs could be granted full access to the deceased’s account without infringing the confidentiality of telecommunications or violating the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).²
These judgments are significant beyond German law because they recognise the digital estate not merely as a collection of data, but as a dynamic information environment. As Maget Dominicé and Haux observe in their analysis of the BGH decisions, digital user accounts should be understood as structured spaces of communication rather than static repositories of information. From this perspective, the digital estate increasingly resembles the concept of cultural heritage, encompassing not only the content itself but also its context, functionality, and accessibility.
This broader understanding may also be linked to the UNESCO Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage (2003)³, which defines digital heritage as all forms of knowledge and creative expression that exist in digital form, regardless of their origin or format. UNESCO emphasises that digital heritage is not merely a technical phenomenon but forms part of humanity’s broader cultural memory, requiring both preservation and continued accessibility. Consequently, legal issues concerning the inheritance of digital assets increasingly intersect with questions of archiving, cultural policy, and the governance of the information society.
Within this context, it is equally important to understand digital environments as unique personal spaces. Social media platforms and online services are no longer merely technological tools; they have become digital environments in which identity, communication, and personal memory are created and preserved. Accordingly, granting access to such environments after a person’s death involves more than simply viewing stored data—it entails entering, at least to some extent, the deceased’s personal digital sphere. This raises complex legal questions concerning the relationship between inheritance law, data protection, and the right to privacy of communications.
Digital estates have therefore become one of the principal challenges of modern inheritance law. German case law demonstrates that the principle of universal succession can be extended to digital environments. Nevertheless, significant questions remain unresolved, particularly regarding the limits imposed by privacy rights and personal data protection. Going forward, legislators and courts will need to strike an appropriate balance between the heirs’ legitimate interest in accessing inherited assets and the protection of the deceased’s personal sphere. As digitalisation continues to transform society, the regulation of digital estates will increasingly become a matter not only of inheritance law but also of technology policy, data governance, and cultural policy.
If you wish to organise your assets and inheritance matters in advance and avoid the kinds of legal complications discussed in this article, we are available to provide comprehensive legal advice. Together, we can assess your individual circumstances, explore appropriate legal solutions, and prepare the necessary legal instruments—such as a will, inheritance agreement, or other legal arrangements—to significantly reduce the risk of future disputes and uncertainty. Timely estate planning remains one of the most effective ways to protect both your own interests and those of your loved ones, and we would be pleased to assist you in finding and implementing the most suitable solution.
[1] Facebook allows users to designate a legacy contact, who is granted limited access to certain features of the user’s account after their death. Further information about this option is available on Facebook’s official Help Centre.
[2] Skubic Zoran, Inheritance of Digital Assets, Pravna praksa, no. 32, 2019, pp. 28-29.
[2] UNESCO, Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage, 2003, available at: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000133171.page=80.