The Digital Graveyard

I just read an article in BBC.com that Facebook has almost 30 million users who have died and whose Facebook accounts still continue. With the increased offerings of free Cloud based services this is going to be a major problem in the future.

Until the last few years you just had to buy a new computer with a larger hard drive or a external hard drive to store your files. But with the introduction of the cloud all that has started changing.

While I am not a techie and am perhaps sticking my neck out, but I would venture and say that Sabeer Bhatia the guy who started Hotmail ( which was bought over by Microsoft) was probably the first free  cloud service provider. Prior to that all your emails were provided by your internet service provider. You saved them on your had drive or paid extra for additional storage. Then along came Mr. Bhatia and started offering Hotmail for free with a limited amount for free storage.

Now Google, MSN and a number of all allow you to store thousands of emails and in addition they offer you separate drives with a fair sized storage capacity.

The free cloud services have tremendous amount of advantages. To give you a few examples

- if you are travelling and are concerned that you might loose your passport  and travel documents, you can store them in your cloud account ( Google drive).
- sharing large  files and photographs
- your medical records . If you have a medical history and you travel rather than carrying a voluminous file it can be stored on your drive.
- your  academic records.

The list goes on . However there are dangers that someone might hack into the drive and steal your identity but assuming that you have the confidence in your password and are willing to take the risk it makes life easier.

However we all have a tendency to have to use different passwords and in some cases ( like me ) even multiple cloud storage accounts.

The Facebook news made me think what happens when you forget some password of an account which your use rarely and you dont remember the security question or have not given any back up email address or your family dont know your passwords ?All the information stored on your cloud will be inaccessible.

What do you ? You can of course do one of the following;
- give your spouse and your children the list of accounts and the passwords ( or leave it in your locker).
- have a back up on an external drive which you keep at home and your family is aware of it. But that still leaves all your files floating in the netherworld or when the service providers implement a policy that after a few years all inactive accounts will be automatically deleted.

Of course the services providers should  do about something about resolving this problem because of the growing size of it.While some of the cloud providers such as Google link it to your email address which ask for a back up email address but the problem is that tends to be another email which you control. What they need to do is like the banks have a nominee and when the account is not actively used for a certain period ( say three to five years) a email automatically goes out to the both the account holder and the nominee informing that the account is inactive and if not accessed will be deleted within the next six months. The nominee should also be given the right of access . 

Also what happens when a service provider such are Amazon or Microsoft or Google goes bankrupt ( unthinkable but look where IBM was and where it is now ) and some of the blue chips of yesterday such as GM which actually went bankrupt. Again the regulators should have the service providers ring fence this service and as in the case of the financial institutions have a living will so that the users are not left high and dry.

Of course some of you who are more tech savvy might have better suggestions. I certainly would like to hear from you.