Author: Shruthika. S, Tamil Nadu National Law University.
TO THE POINT
In today’s world, our identities aren’t just about our physical selves they’re also deeply tied to our digital lives. From emails and social media profiles to cloud storage and digital wallets, our online footprints stay on even after we’re gone. But have you ever wondered, who actually owns these digital assets once we pass away? This is a question that’s becoming more urgent, especially since Indian laws haven’t really caught up with the digital age.
With major data breaches happening, like the 2025 attack that leaked 16 billion credentials from tech giants such as Google, Facebook, and Apple, it’s clear we need to think seriously about protecting our digital legacies. In this article, we’ll look at the current legal gaps, possible reforms, and what courts might be hinting at regarding digital inheritance in India.
ABSTRACT
In today’s world, a person’s life isn’t just limited to real-world possessions. Our digital lives emails, social media accounts, cloud files, photos, digital wallets, and online subscriptions are integral parts of who we are. But what happens to all this digital stuff when someone passes away?
This phenomenon is called “Digital death”, and it brings with it numerous legal and practical challenges. These include questions such as:
- Who can access your email or social media after your death?
- Can your family actually retrieve pictures and important files from the cloud?
- Can your cryptocurrency holdings be inherited like any other financial asset?
Currently, India does not have a specific law that governs these issues. Unlike physical property, which is passed on to heirs under the Indian Succession Act, 1925, digital assets are not formally recognized as part of a person’s estate. Instead, access to such accounts is governed by the Terms of Service (TOS) of the respective platforms contracts that often deny any posthumous access, even to legal heirs.
Adding to this uncertainty is the growing threat of cybersecurity breaches. In June 2025, the world witnessed one of the largest-ever data breaches, where more than 16 billion login credentials including those of Google, Apple, Facebook, Telegram, and other platforms were leaked online. This breach revealed a stark reality:
Digital accounts are not only legally inaccessible after death they are also vulnerable to theft, manipulation, or permanent loss.
This article explores digital death from a legal perspective, especially focusing on the intersection of privacy rights, property law, and inheritance frameworks. It also reviews international legal responses such as Germany allowing digital inheritance under civil law and highlights judicial silence in India, even after landmark privacy judgments like Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017).
USE OF LEGAL JARGON
In India, the rules for passing on property and other rights after death are mainly based on laws like the Indian Succession Act of 1925, and personal laws that depend on religion, such as the Hindu Succession Act of 1956 or Islamic inheritance principles. These laws clearly lay out how tangible assets like land, jewellery, bank accounts, and investments should be divided among the heirs of someone who has died.
However, a major blind spot in these laws is the absence of any mention of digital assets a growing category that is becoming just as valuable as physical property in the modern age.
Digital assets include:
- Cloud-stored documents (e.g., important legal files or academic work saved on Google Drive or Dropbox),
- Social media content (Facebook posts, Instagram photos, tweets, messages, reels, etc.),
- Domain names (especially for entrepreneurs or content creators),
- Virtual currencies (like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies),
- Encrypted messages and emails (which may contain crucial information or even personal secrets).
These assets, while created and used by an individual during their lifetime, do not automatically pass to heirs after death. Why? Because they are not owned in the traditional sense of law. They are governed by Terms of Service (TOS) the private contracts users agree to when signing up for platforms like Google, Meta, or Apple.
Most of these TOS agreements explicitly state that:
- Accounts are non-transferable.
- Access ends with the user’s death.
- The company is under no obligation to grant access to family members, even with a death certificate or legal notice.
This creates a legal grey area. Families grieving the loss of a loved one may find themselves locked out of important memories, documents, or digital financial assets not because of any express denial in Indian law, but because private company policies overrule traditional succession rights.
Over and above this is the Right to Privacy, which has been recognized as a Fundamental Right under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution in the landmark case Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017). This judgment said that informational privacy is at the very core of personal liberty. But what happens to this right after death?
Do privacy rights die with the person, or do they continue to shield their data from even close family members?
There is no clear judicial answer in India. Courts have not yet definitively ruled on whether the right to privacy survives posthumously, and if so, to what extent. This leads to a profound legal and ethical dilemma:
Should a parent be allowed to access their deceased child’s email account?
Can a spouse retrieve photos or passwords from their partner’s locked phone?
Should companies be forced to grant such access, or protect the user’s privacy even after death?
Until Indian law addresses these questions explicitly, digital death will remain an area of legal uncertainty, governed more by private policies than public law, and leaving heirs without recourse to what could be important, meaningful, or valuable digital legacies.
THE PROOF
- The 2025 Credential Leak: A Cautionary Tale
In June 2025, a major alarm was raised when top tech publications like Forbes and India Times reported one of the biggest data breaches in history. Over 16 billion usernames, passwords, and personal credentials were leaked from widely used platforms including Google, Facebook, Apple, Telegram, and others.
This wasn’t just a cybersecurity issue it revealed a serious legal gap in how we handle digital assets after death.
Why this breach matters legally and personally:
- Most people don’t share their passwords before they die. That means when someone passes away, their online accounts emails, cloud storage, social media, even banking or crypto apps can become completely inaccessible to their family or legal heirs.
- If those accounts are part of a data breach, there’s a serious risk that private messages, sensitive documents, or financial details could be stolen, deleted, or misused by hackers.
- In India, there is no clear legal process or statute that allows family members to recover or claim access to these digital accounts after death. Even if they provide a death certificate or a succession certificate, tech companies often refuse access due to internal privacy policies.
This breach shows us that digital death is not just a theoretical concern it is a real-world legal and emotional problem.
Without laws recognizing digital wills or the inheritance of online accounts, we leave behind more than memories we leave legal confusion, security risks, and sometimes, irretrievable losses.
That’s why this incident should serve as a wake-up call: India needs strong legal frameworks that allow people to plan their digital legacy, just like they do for physical property
CASE LAWS
1. In re Facebook (Germany, 2018)
- The German Federal Court ruled that a deceased minor’s Facebook account could be accessed by her parents under inheritance laws.
- The court treated digital communication like physical property (letters, diaries).
Relevance: Encourages treating digital content as inheritable property.
2. Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017)
- The Indian Supreme Court declared privacy a fundamental right under Article 21.
- However, it did not clarify whether this right survives death.
Relevance: Raises tension between a deceased person’s privacy and heirs’ rights.
3. Carpenter v. United States (2018, USA)
- Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that digital data falls under the purview of the Fourth Amendment.
- Reinforces the idea that digital presence has constitutional value.
Relevance: Suggests a need for privacy-respecting yet access-friendly data succession laws.
4. Thaler v. Hirshfeld (2021)
- A U.S. court ruled that AI cannot be listed as an inventor under current patent laws.
- Though not about death, it reinforces the need to rethink legal ownership in non-human, non-tangible domains.
Relevance: Supports reinterpreting legal definitions to accommodate digital realities.
CONCLUSION
The law cannot afford to be digitally silent. As we live more of our lives online, we must acknowledge that death too now has a digital dimension.
The 2025 breach of billions of credentials shows that posthumous data is not just legally unclaimed it’s dangerously exposed. In India, heirs currently have no recognized right to a deceased person’s Google Drive, iCloud, Instagram, or crypto wallet. That has to change.
India must:
- Amend the Succession Act to include digital assets.
- Enable digital will registration platforms.
- Compel tech platforms to build statutory legacy access systems.
- Clearly define posthumous digital privacy rights.
Until then, we must protect our own digital afterlife: write digital wills, use password managers, and enable legacy tools before it’s too late.
FAQs
1. What is “Digital Death”?
The issue deals with legal and ethical questions concerning a person’s belongings online, identity, and accounts after they die.
2. Is digital inheritance covered under Indian law?
No. Indian law does not yet classify digital assets as inheritable property.
3. Can family access my online accounts after death?
Only if you’ve enabled tools like Google’s Inactive Account Manager or left behind passwords. Legally, they are not entitled to it.
4. How does the 2025 breach relate to this topic?
The breach exposed billions of logins, showing how vulnerable posthumous data can be without legal safeguards.
5. What legal reforms are needed?
Amending succession laws, defining digital privacy post-death, and implementing digital legacy tools under law.
