What happens to my digital accounts and online assets when I die in Ontario?

Digital assets in an estate can include social media accounts, email accounts, cloud storage, online banking, subscription services, domain names, digital photos, and cryptocurrency. In Ontario, these assets are increasingly important but are often overlooked in estate planning.

The legal landscape for digital assets in Canada is still developing. Many online platforms' terms of service restrict account access to the named account holder, which means your executor may face barriers even if they have your passwords. Some platforms have legacy policies — Facebook's "Memorialization" or Google's "Inactive Account Manager" — that allow you to designate what happens to your account, but these vary widely.

Cryptocurrency presents unique challenges because ownership depends entirely on controlling the private keys. If your executor cannot find your keys, the cryptocurrency may be permanently inaccessible. It is essential to document how your cryptocurrency is stored and how keys can be accessed, without leaving that information so exposed that it creates a security risk during your lifetime.

The practical steps: make an inventory of your digital assets, include instructions in a secure document (not in the will itself, since wills become public), and give your executor the information they need to access and manage them. Your will can include a clause granting the executor authority over digital assets, which may help with some platform policies.