Digital Estate Planning for Small Businesses: Part 2
By Claudiu Popa | July 4, 2011
The following are a few simple best practices that we all should adopt when dealing with information assets that should be verifiably purged (before or after that information has been 'orphaned'):
- Read privacy policies and don't be intimidated by the legal talk.
Focus in on the parts that outline data collection, use, storage and disposal. If you feel that anything is out of line, that's your cue to reconsider signing up, or to potentially submit inaccurate information. Alternatively, you may want to engage the privacy contact for clarification on any related issue. For instance, Facebook's policy includes such ambiguous wording as "Copies of some material (photos, notes, etc.) may remain in our servers for technical reasons, but this material is disassociated from any personal identifiers and completely inaccessible to other users. Facebook also does not use content associated with accounts that have been deactivated or deleted." - Use a password management database.
These tools range from the exceptional to the malicious, so be careful what you choose, but make sure you select something that incorporates an encrypted database and the opportunity to include notes. Classify sites that require more info separately from ones that just use a username/password. You may choose to submit a different email address, or forwarder to different types of sites in the event in which you would want to sever ties with all of them at the same time. Perhaps most importantly, for sites that do build detailed profiles, make a note of the privacy officer's contact information and store in the notes. It will come in handy when you, or your executor, will need to contact all sites simultaneously and request a data purge (or simply an inventory of the information they have on file). - Get into the habit of thinking before submitting all the information sites ask for.
Always ask yourself if submitting all that information is necessary for them to deliver the promised service. If it's a show-stopper, simply enter false information and make a note of what you entered, in case you're challenged. Again, include this in the notes for each entry of the password management database. - Take steps to submit self-destructing contact information.
Why depend on sites and companies to 'expire' your information when you can do it yourself? A number of online services will provide you, free of charge, with remailers and email forwarding that will deliver email to your real address, but only so many times before ceasing to exist. As an added bonus, these services also offer a basic degree of anonymity. - Make use of autoresponders for all email addresses that are no longer in existence.
Include a detailed message indicating that any information associated with the destination email should be eliminated from their system. This way, legitimate senders will eventually realize that not only is the email address no longer valid, but so is the rest of the information that is linked to it. - Inventory all such online information repositories and stay on top of the issues until they are resolved.
Established e-commerce companies are often in the habit of sharing your information with their sponsors and advertisers. Be sure to individually notify them early on and individually of any changes. Particularly final ones. - Conduct periodic Internet searches for information 'stubs' and other orphaned data that should be eliminated.
While posts on bulletin boards are acceptable, social networking site profiles are not. Be sure to address each instance separately.
We should all be reminded that information represents the building blocks of our identity, and directly impacts our business activities. Beyond the proper disposal of our data-based estate lies the very real threat of identity theft. That threat is not imminent, it is real and has been for years. For example, in 2004 alone, some 400,000 checking accounts were reportedly opened and millions of dollars in car loans were approved in the names of deceased individuals.
This particularly effective type of identity theft is called 'ghosting' and most often occurs as a result of orphaned data being harvested by IT-savvy criminals looking to profit. Therefore, in addition to following the above best practices we must encourage clients and loved ones to exercise common sense when filling out obituaries, notifying credit bureaus and safeguarding death certificates.
Above all, we may all soon be in need of an Internet-savvy, privacy aware, digital estate planner to deal with our personal, business and professional information in the online world.
Page 2 of 2 | Go to Page 1