Think about everything that exists only online. Your email. Your photos stored in the cloud. Your Facebook and Instagram accounts. Your Amazon account with a saved payment method and years of purchase history. Your Netflix, Spotify, and Apple subscriptions. Your frequent flyer miles. Maybe a cryptocurrency wallet or a PayPal balance. A small online business or a monetized YouTube channel.

Now think about what happens to all of it when you die. Who has access? Who has the legal authority to manage it, transfer it, or shut it down? In most cases, the answer is nobody — because most people have never thought about it and have no plan in place.

Digital assets are one of the most overlooked parts of estate planning, and one of the most important. This article explains what Arkansas law says about digital assets after death and what you can do right now to protect what you've built online.

What Counts as a Digital Asset?

A digital asset is any electronic record in which you have a right or interest. That's a broad definition — and intentionally so. Digital assets include:

• Email accounts (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, iCloud)
• Social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, TikTok)
• Online banking and investment accounts
• Cryptocurrency and digital wallets (Bitcoin, Ethereum, Coinbase, etc.)
• PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, and similar payment platforms
• Photo and video storage (Google Photos, iCloud, Dropbox, Amazon Photos)
• Subscription services (Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Prime, Apple One)
• Loyalty and rewards programs (airline miles, hotel points, credit card rewards)
• Online businesses, websites, and domain names
• Monetized content (YouTube channels, blogs, Patreon accounts)
• Gaming accounts with purchased content or in-game currency
• Digital purchases (Kindle books, iTunes library, Steam games)
• Password managers and authentication apps

When you think through that list, most people realize they have far more digital property than they ever considered — and most of it is completely unaccounted for in their estate plan.

What Happens to Digital Assets When You Die

Without a plan, the default outcome for most digital assets is one of three things: they become inaccessible, they get deleted, or they sit in limbo indefinitely.

Your family may know you had accounts but have no way to access them. Passwords are locked behind two-factor authentication tied to your phone. Email providers won't hand over credentials to grieving spouses without a court order. Social media platforms have their own policies — and those policies often don't align with what you or your family would want.

In some cases, platforms will eventually delete inactive accounts. In others, accounts stay up indefinitely — a strange digital ghost that your family stumbles across years later. Neither outcome is a plan.

Arkansas Law and the RUFADAA

Arkansas has adopted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA), which gives fiduciaries — including executors, trustees, and agents under a power of attorney — the legal authority to manage digital assets after someone's death or incapacity.

Under the RUFADAA, the priority of authority works like this. First, any directions you leave through an online tool provided by the platform itself (like Facebook's Legacy Contact feature) take precedence. Second, directions left in a legal document like a will or trust. Third, the platform's own terms of service — which is the default if you've done nothing.

The practical takeaway is that what you do — or don't do — during your lifetime determines what your family can access after you're gone. If you rely on the platform's default terms of service, you're leaving the decision to a company that has no obligation to prioritize your family's interests.

Social Media Accounts

Each major platform handles death differently, and the policies change frequently. Here's the general landscape as of now.

Facebook and Instagram

Facebook allows you to designate a Legacy Contact who can manage certain aspects of your memorialized account after your death — pinning a tribute post, responding to friend requests, and updating your profile photo. They cannot log in as you or read your messages. Alternatively, you can request that your account be deleted after you die. These settings are found in your Facebook settings under "Memorialization Settings." Instagram currently allows memorialization or removal requests from verified family members.

Google (Gmail, YouTube, Photos)

Google has an Inactive Account Manager that lets you decide what happens to your Google data — including Gmail, Google Photos, and YouTube — if your account becomes inactive. You can designate trusted contacts to receive data from specific products, or instruct Google to delete your account after a period of inactivity. This is one of the most comprehensive tools available and is worth setting up regardless of your age.

Apple

Apple introduced a Digital Legacy program that allows you to designate Legacy Contacts who can request access to your iCloud account after your death. Without this designation, Apple will not provide access to your account — not even to a spouse or family member — without a court order.

X (Twitter), LinkedIn, TikTok

These platforms generally allow verified family members to request memorialization or account removal, but do not provide login access or content transfer to survivors.

Online Financial Accounts and Cryptocurrency

Online banking and investment accounts are generally handled through the normal probate and estate administration process, provided your executor has proper legal authority and the account information. Most financial institutions have procedures for handling deceased account holders and will work with your executor once they present the appropriate documentation.

Cryptocurrency is an entirely different matter. Cryptocurrency is secured by private keys — long strings of characters that prove ownership of the funds. If those keys are lost, the cryptocurrency is gone permanently. There is no customer service line to call, no account recovery process, no way to prove ownership without the key itself. An estimated significant portion of all Bitcoin in existence is believed to be permanently inaccessible because of lost keys.

If you own cryptocurrency, planning for it is not optional — it is essential. Your estate plan needs to include a secure method for your executor to locate and access your private keys or recovery phrases. This requires careful thought about both security and accessibility, since the information that gives your family access is also the information that would allow anyone else to steal your holdings.

Subscriptions, Rewards, and Stored Value

Most subscription services — Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Prime — are non-transferable and simply terminate when the account is canceled. The value of an active subscription is generally not recoverable. This is worth knowing so your family can cancel promptly and avoid continued charges to a credit card that may still be active.

Airline miles and hotel points are a different story. Many loyalty programs allow miles to transfer to a designated beneficiary or surviving family member, but this must typically be set up in advance or requested promptly after death. The rules vary significantly by program, and some programs do expire miles after a period of account inactivity. If you have a significant balance of miles or points, it's worth checking your program's policies and designating a beneficiary if the option exists.

PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App balances are generally recoverable by your estate through a formal request process, provided your executor has the appropriate legal documentation.

Photos, Email, and Sentimental Content

For many families, the most important digital assets are not the ones with financial value — they're the photos, videos, and messages that can never be recreated. A lifetime of photos stored only in Google Photos or iCloud. Years of family videos. Emails from people who are no longer alive.

These assets deserve as much attention as any financial account. A few practical steps can make all the difference. Back up your photos to a physical hard drive regularly. Set up Google's Inactive Account Manager or Apple's Digital Legacy program. Make sure at least one trusted person knows where your digital content lives and how to access it.

I've had clients tell me that the photos are the only thing they'd want to save if the house was burning down. Those same photos could be permanently lost if the Google account goes inactive and no one has access. Don't let that happen.

How to Plan for Your Digital Assets

A complete digital asset plan has several components that work together.

Create a digital inventory

Make a list of every significant account you have — email, social media, financial, subscription, and any others with financial or sentimental value. Include the platform, your username, and where the password can be found. This inventory should be stored securely but accessibly — not on a sticky note, but not in a locked safe that nobody else knows about either.

Use a password manager

A reputable password manager stores all of your login credentials in one encrypted location. Many password managers have an emergency access feature that allows a designated person to request access after a waiting period. This can be a practical solution for giving your executor access to your accounts without sharing your master password while you're alive.

Use platform tools while you can

Set up Google's Inactive Account Manager. Designate a Facebook Legacy Contact. Set up Apple's Digital Legacy program. These take fifteen minutes and can save your family enormous frustration. Do them now, before you need them.

Consider a digital executor

Some people designate a separate digital executor in their will — someone who is technically savvy and trusted to manage online accounts specifically. This can be the same person as your general executor or someone different, depending on who in your life is best suited for each role.

What to Include in Your Will

Your will should explicitly address digital assets. This includes authorizing your executor to access, manage, transfer, and close digital accounts on your behalf. Under the RUFADAA, this authorization in your will gives your executor the legal standing to work with platforms and service providers — which they may not have otherwise.

Your will can also reference a separate personal property memorandum where you've listed specific digital assets and your wishes for each. This memorandum can be updated without redoing your will, which makes it a practical tool for something as changeable as digital accounts.

What your will should not include is sensitive account credentials, private keys, or recovery phrases. That information belongs in a secure document that is referenced in your will but stored separately.

Getting Help

Digital assets are one of the areas where estate planning has not kept pace with how people actually live. Most older estate plans — even ones that were comprehensive at the time — say nothing about digital assets, because the concept barely existed when they were drafted. If your will or trust is more than a few years old, it's worth reviewing with an attorney who can make sure your digital life is covered.

I help Arkansans think through all of this — not just the traditional pieces like wills and guardianship designations, but the full picture of what you've built and what you want to happen to it. If you haven't thought about your digital assets as part of your estate plan, that's exactly where we'd start.