I am happy to announce the formation of the Death and the Digital Estate Community Group (DADE CG). DADE CG has been created as a space for the Open

Announcing the Death and the Digital Estate Community Group

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2024-09-28 18:30:15

I am happy to announce the formation of the Death and the Digital Estate Community Group (DADE CG). DADE CG has been created as a space for the OpenID Foundation and identity community to develop an understanding of how individuals can manage their digital estate in the event of disablement or death.

Before we dive deep into DADE, the problem space, and the outputs of DADE - all of these things will come in the next few weeks - I want to share some history of how I found myself working on this passion project. In November 2010, a close friend of mine passed away unexpectedly. His passing rocked my world. We were close in age - both under 40 - with young children and plans for the future. Our plans to climb Mt. Rainier together never came to pass.

In the following months and years, I spent a lot of time thinking about death and how I, and others, could manage our credentials for online services in order to allow our friends and family to gracefully manage our digital footprint after death. Initially, I spent time considering a dead man’s switch - a mechanism that would release access to a set of credentials to a defined individual or individuals after a fixed period of time where the owner didn’t check in to the service. The solution seemed unwieldy and impractical.