November is Wills Month, a time to think about creating a will to help with your estate planning as currently about half of all Canadians don’t have one. Along with investments, property, and your belongings, you may also want to make sure your “digital assets” are protected too. Raymond Baker, of Bowmanville, had several serious health issues and passed away in February of this year. He was married to his wife, Cathy Baker, for almost 47 years. When she was going through his things she tried to access his iPad but it was locked. “That’s when I contacted Apple to see how I could get the activation lock removed,” Baker said. Apple said they could send an email to her husband’s account to unlock the iPad, but Cathy said the email on file had been hacked and had not been used for years. Baker says she was told the only way to unlock the iPad was to provide a court order, which could cost her thousands of dollars. “I have a death certificate, I have a copy of his will, they wouldn’t even accept that. They said I had to get that court order,” she told CTV News. Willful is an online estate planning platform. Its CEO Erin Bury said in a last will and testament it’s important to include some kind of guidance regarding digital assets. “A will can give your executor the authority to deal with digital assets and accounts on your behalf, which can be crucial in an era where we often have hundreds of accounts in our name,” said Bury. Apple does allow you to create an Apple legacy contact so you can have trusted people access your accounts after your gone, but if it’s not set up beforehand, no one’s allowed in. The company has a page for requesting information to a deceased family member’s Apple account. There’s also a Legacy Contact setup page, which is what more people need to know about and set up. “Just because an executer has the legal authority to act on your behalf doesn’t mean the technology provider will be willing to release the persons information,” Bury said. Technology expert Carmi Levy said Apple won’t bend its security rules to grant families access to devices. “The company is very resistant toward providing a back door of some kind to work around to allow access to individual accounts after their passing,” he said. Baker said it’s unfortunate she can’t retrieve her husband’s photos and documents, nor use the locked iPad. “I really don’t want to toss it because it’s still a running iPad and I would like to give it to our son so he can have something from his father,” she said. Levy, meanwhile, said if information cannot be retrieved from an iPad, it can be wiped to be used again but all data would disappear. “You can take it into an Apple store, a Genius bar and they will reset the device, and all the data gets lost but at least it can still be used by someone else,” he said. You shouldn’t, however, write your passwords, banking logins, or other private information in your will as it will be a matter of public record. It’s better to tell your executor where they are and keep them in a safe and secure location.
