How do we provide the digital footprint with eternal rest? Some criteria for legislation regulating digital wills

Abstract

This article analyses the implications of the death of digital service users on their digital footprint and assesses some of the solutions -contractual and legislative-that have been posited to date by digital service providers and by Parliaments of a few countries. In view of the different initiatives analysed, and the experience gained in their implementation, the paper presents legal certainty, effectiveness and transparency as criteria that should guide the regulation of the digital footprint in the case of death. These criteria must allow for the adoption or regulation of mechanisms for managing the digital footprint of digital service users to be clear and trustworthy for them and efficient and easily recognized and adopted by digital service providers.