As your family and friends make their Estate Plans, they may be thinking about their digital legacy and how to Create a Facebook Legacy Contact. This includes deciding whether they want to give someone they trust control of their Facebook account or have their Digital Legacy taken away.
After thinking about what to do with a Facebook account after someone dies, you might be chosen as the Legacy Contact in Facebook. You may feel honored to be given this responsibility, but you may not fully understand what it means for you and what your responsibilities may be. So, we wrote this article to explain what a Digital Legacy is, what a Legacy Contact on Facebook is, and what your responsibilities and powers will be if you agree to be someone’s Legacy Contact.
What is a Legacy Contact?
You can choose a family member or close friend as a legacy contact on Facebook, but they must be your friend. When someone tells Facebook that you have died, Facebook marks your account as a memorial and gives your legacy account limited access to your account. The legacy contact can handle tribute posts on your profile, update your profile picture and cover photo, and answer new friend requests. The legacy contact can’t sign in as the person who died or read their messages as that person.
How to Create a Facebook Legacy Contact
- Settings: Click on the Settings tab. Under the options for your name, username, and contact information, you will see an option for “Memorialization Settings.” It’s a link.
- Choose legacy contact: You will see details about what a legacy contact is allowed to do. You can put the name of the person you want to be your legacy contact in a box.
- Send a message: Once you decide who you want to be your legacy contact, Facebook will let that person know. You can also send them a message with information about why you chose them or any last wishes you have for your account.
- Possible choice: At this point, you can choose to ask for your account to be deleted after you die. Choose carefully, because your whole account will be deleted, including pictures, messages, and information.
Why is Setting up a Legacy Contact Important on Facebook?
On Facebook, a legacy contact is someone you choose to take care of your account after you die. They can pin a post to your timeline, change your profile picture and cover photo, and answer friend requests. They can also get a copy of your data by downloading it.
- It lets you pick a person you trust to take care of your account after you die. This could be a close friend, a member of the family, or a lawyer.
- It keeps your account from being erased. If you don’t have a legacy contact, your account will be deleted after 1 year of inactivity.
- It lets your legacy contact carry on your memory. They can write about your life, share photos and videos, and keep your friends and family up to date on your legacy.
Benefits of Having a Legacy Contact
- Your legacy contact can make sure that people remember you. They can write about your life, share photos and videos, and keep your friends and family up to date on your legacy.
- Your legacy contact will be able to take care of your account after you die. They can pin a post to your timeline, change your profile picture and cover photo, and answer friend requests. They can also get a copy of your data by downloading it.
- You can protect your privacy with the help of your legacy contact. They can get rid of posts or photos that you might not want people to see after you die.
- Scams can be avoided with the help of your legacy contact. Many scams try to get money from the accounts of people who have died. By being careful about who they talk to on your account, your legacy contact can help you avoid these scams.
What a Legacy Contact Can Do
Now that you know what a legacy contact is for, it’s important to explain what that person can and can’t do with your account after you’re gone:
- Change your profile picture
- Change your cover photo
- Write a pinned post on your profile
- Respond to friend requests
How to Download Facebook?
Android:
- App launch Google Play Store.
- Look for “Facebook”.
- Tap “Install”.
- Open the app and log in after installation.
iPhone:
- Launch the App Store.
- Look for “Facebook”.
- Tap “Get”.
- Open the app and log in after installation.
FAQs
When someone dies, Facebook friends and family can ask us to mark the account as a memorial. Once a person is memorialized, the word “Remembering” appears above their name on their profile. This turns the account into a memorial site and protects it from attempted logins and other scams.
A legacy account is one that is held with a provider that has been shut down (see below) or in a legacy investment with an approved provider that was funded before January 1, 2021. An ongoing account is one that can only be managed by a company that has been given permission to do so.
You can choose a Facebook legacy contact in the section of your account settings called “Memorialization Settings” under “General Account Settings.” To name a legacy contact on Facebook, all you have to do is choose the person you want to take care of your memorial account.
