‘Cyber funerals’ to clean up online legacies after loved ones' deaths

Bereaved relatives are seeking to have the online legacy of their deceased loved ones cleaned up as part of a “cyber funeral”.

A tech firm says its services, starting at about £300, are increasingly being sought to close down social media accounts stuck in digital purgatory, manage Google search results and stop hackers from virtually resurrecting the deceased.

DigitalOx said families are concerned that dormant accounts could get hacked and brought back to life, potentially using stolen login details sold by hackers on the dark web.

Its investigators can make a “digital assessment” of the deceased’s online footprint to find embarrassing or unflattering search results.

Armed with proof of identity, written permission and a death certificate, they then contact the tech firm involved to demand deletion under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation rules, known as the “right to be forgotten”.

Alana Benson, DigitalOx client account manager, said: “We live in a digital world while we’re alive, with multiple social media accounts and profiles.

Some people’s families choose to maintain these or put up in memoriam pages, but others want everything removed in terms of their online footprint. It could be an ex-employee or competitors slating them online, negative feedback or publicity, harassment or defamation.”

She added: “Others don’t want the upset of seeing things that remind them of a loved one after they’ve passed.

“Often family members won’t know logins so you have to provide a copy of a death certificate and signed documents, which can get intricate and complicated.

“Families don’t want to risk losing control of the account if it gets hacked and they find one day that a deceased son or daughter’s account is posting again, with somebody posing as them.”

The service is similar to Yahoo Ending, available in Japan, which deletes a deceased user’s account and sends an email to contacts informing them of the sad news, while deleting photos and documents and cancelling subscriptions.