Accessing a Deceased Person's Digital Assets in Ontario: An Executor's Guide

A generation ago, an executor's job was mostly about paper — bank statements, a house, a filing cabinet of documents. Today, a meaningful part of most people's lives lives online: email, photos, social media, cryptocurrency, subscriptions, even domain names. Accessing a deceased person's digital assets in Ontario raises a question many executors don't expect to have to answer: you may have the legal authority to deal with something, but no practical way to actually get into it.

This guide walks through what your authority actually covers, and how to work with the gap between legal authority and platform access.

What Counts as a Digital Asset

Digital assets fall into a few broad categories, each with different practical challenges:

• Financial or monetary accounts — cryptocurrency wallets, online banking and investment platforms, PayPal-style payment accounts
• Communication and storage — email accounts, cloud photo and document storage
• Social media and personal accounts — profiles the family may want preserved, memorialized, or closed
• Subscriptions and recurring services — streaming services, cloud storage plans, domain name registrations
• Business-related digital property — websites, online store accounts, and business email if the deceased ran a business

Some of these have real monetary value that needs to be identified as part of the estate. Others matter mainly for sentimental or practical reasons — closing accounts, retrieving photos, or preventing identity misuse.

Your Legal Authority as Executor

Once you're properly appointed as estate trustee, your authority generally extends to all of the deceased's property — and digital property is still property. In principle, you have the legal right to deal with a deceased person's digital assets the same way you would their physical belongings or bank accounts: identifying them, securing their value, and eventually distributing or closing them out as part of the estate.

The complication is that having the legal right to deal with something and having the practical ability to access it are two different problems in the digital world.

Why Access Is Still Hard in Practice

Unlike a bank, which is used to dealing with estates and has established processes for executors, most online platforms weren't built with death in mind. A few realities executors run into:

• Passwords and logins are not automatically yours to use. Even if you find the deceased's saved passwords, logging into their personal accounts as though you were them — rather than going through the platform's own executor or estate-access process — can violate that platform's terms of service, even where you have full legal authority as estate trustee.
• Each platform sets its own rules. Major email, social media, and cloud providers each have their own policies for handling a deceased user's account — some offer a way to designate someone in advance (often called a "legacy contact" or similar feature), others require a formal request with proof of death and your appointment, and some offer very limited options at all.
• There's no single Ontario law that forces a platform to hand over access. Digital asset access is governed largely by each company's own terms of service and internal policies, not a dedicated Ontario statute — which means the process, and how cooperative a given company is, varies significantly from one platform to the next.
• Two-factor authentication and device locks can block even authorized access. Modern security features designed to protect the account holder can just as easily block a legitimate executor trying to get in.

Practical Steps for an Executor

1. Make a list of known digital accounts and assets as early as possible — check email inboxes for account confirmations, browser saved passwords (with appropriate care), and any notes the deceased left about accounts or a password manager.
2. Check whether the deceased planned ahead. Some people leave a password manager, a written list, or a designated "legacy contact" on specific platforms — any of these can save significant time.
3. Use each platform's own estate or memorialization process, rather than logging in directly, wherever one exists. You'll typically need to provide proof of death and proof of your appointment as estate trustee.
4. Prioritize by value and urgency. Financial accounts and anything with real monetary value (including cryptocurrency) should generally come first; social media memorialization or closure can usually wait.
5. Document everything you find and every request you make. Digital asset administration can take time and involve back-and-forth with multiple companies — clear records protect you if questions arise later.
6. Get legal advice for anything with significant value or genuine ambiguity, particularly cryptocurrency, business accounts, or a platform that refuses to cooperate with your legal authority.

Special Caution: Cryptocurrency and Passwords

Cryptocurrency deserves particular care. Unlike a bank account, there is often no company to call and no formal recovery process if access credentials (a private key or recovery phrase) are lost — the funds can become permanently inaccessible. If you're aware the deceased held cryptocurrency, involve a lawyer and, where appropriate, a technically experienced professional promptly, and avoid guessing at passwords or making changes to wallets or exchange accounts without proper guidance.

Frequently asked questions