The Rise of Digital Death

Immortalising the dead through code risks short-circuiting the fragile, necessary process of grief

- VIIVECK VERMA

For most of human history, death was a quiet retreat from the public sphere, a slow vanishing of the self from memory, record, and ritual. But in the 21st century, death has acquired an unsettling permanence. Thanks to our always-online lives, we now leave behind a digital wake, an intricate mosaic of emails, photos, passwords, bank accounts, social media profiles, playlists, subscriptions, health records, and more. We die, but our data doesn't. This phenomenon, commonly referred to as 'digital death', poses a deceptively simple question: What happens to your digital self after your biological self ceases to exist? The answer is far murkier than most people realise.

The majority of individuals have no digital will, no posthumous instructions, and no idea what rights their families have, or don’t have, over their digital assets. Even as we increasingly move our lives online, the legal, ethical, and emotional terrain of digital death remains dangerously underexplored. The gap is especially pronounced in India, where tech adoption has skyrocketed but digital estate planning remains rare. And it’s not just a personal or familial issue, it’s a societal one.

Ghost Accounts