Dead man's iPhone

Frozen_up_north

The issue of illegal hacking on the basis of being the executor of a will won’t stand up in court. There is no need to hack anything, shut the bank account (easy to find via bank cards), check the post.

On-line savings and investments result in a letter being sent via the post. The deceased is likely to have kept a copy. Place a notice in a local newspaper and The London Gazette. Any interested parties should make contact, any outstanding claims will be null and void after 6 weeks.

Solicitors administer wills all the time and won’t be hacking anything in the process.

Biggus_Dickus

stripeyfox wrote: »

You mean you can't chop someones finger off to unlock their phone?

:rotfl:

...possibly;...undertakers routinely amputate the fingers of corpses so that ‘rings’ can be recovered.:eek:

Uxb1

Frozen_up_north wrote: »

On-line savings and investments result in a letter being sent via the post. The deceased is likely to have kept a copy. Place a notice in a local newspaper and The London Gazette. Any interested parties should make contact, any outstanding claims will be null and void after 6 weeks.

Indeed - and the letters chucked away/lost whatever. So for some accounts I never found any surviving paperwork - just the email record which is why I wanted to get access to the email account.
There was not a hole punch or ring folder in the house.
I found lots of other paperwork from a few years back which later transpired related to accounts since closed as I had to write off to each financial group - but the closure paperwork was missing.

Then there was the energy account - meter not read for 5 years or more, estimate bills only all paid by DD set far too low and the total now way out of line with reality as the heating had been left on 24/7 so the outstanding bill due was in the thousands. No paperwork and no idea who was the supplier. so I found an meter read request email which gave the the supplier, asked for a password reset email which then gave me access to the online account from which I could find out what was going on. Which was more than the energy supplier call centre could as they simply could not believe the amount of energy used was correct.

The Gazette notice thing only protect the executor against claims against themselves for distributing the estate before the debt was settled. The claims from debtors are still valid expect that the claimant now has, after the elapsed date listed pursue the residual beneficiaries as the executor is legally clear. It therefore follows that if you both the executor and the sole residual beneficiary there is no point to the Gazette advert since you are not protecting yourself against anything.
In practice one is wise to delay distribution of the residue of the estate until 6 months after probate as that is the time limit under the inheritances and dependencies act 1975 gives for unknown "stray" children to emerge from under a stone and make claims on the estate.

Takmon

missile wrote: »

Why? You didn't offer any advice. Just being a nosy parker.

How could i offer advice when the advice depends on what information you needed to access.. emails, contacts and photos could all be accessed in different ways and so the advice would be different.

missile wrote: »

Definition; a prying observer who is usually seeking the sordid or the scandalous = that sounds like you :rotfl:

So now your admitting the reason for access to the device is sordid and/or scandalous :rotfl:

missile wrote: »

Does anyone care what your opinion is? As others have said there are MANY reasons why she might want access. For example: I don't know all of my wife's friends / their contact details to advise them in the event of her death. It would be useful to access those on her mobile, but I don't have her PIN.

If your expecting people to help you then the least you can do if say why the need access. The only reason you wouldn't want to is if the reasons are not genuine which seems to be quite clear that is the case with all this talk of voyeurism and you saying it is "sordid or the scandalous" :rotfl:

Well ask your wife for her pin code then so you can easily access her phone in the event of her death.

Undervalued

missile wrote: »

As others have said there are MANY reasons why she might want access. For example: I don't know all of my wife's friends / their contact details to advise them in the event of her death. It would be useful to access those on her mobile, but I don't have her PIN.

There may be many reasons why she WANTS access but I can't think of a single reason why she should be entitled to access.

If an individual chooses not to share access to the personal information contained in their phone / social media / cloud etc during their life then in my opinion that should be respected after their death. Quite rightly in my view that is the line the technology companies take in these cases, despite the occasional sob stories pedalled in the tabloid media!

Apple's response here is absolutely correct. They will, given a death certificate, reset the device so that the lawful beneficiary can reuse or sell the phone as they choose just like any other physical property. Rightly however they regard the device and the data as two separate things.

I hope anybody seeing a solicitor to make a will would be prompted to think about what they want to happen in this respect. If they choose to grant access to a particular person after their death then a secure mechanism should be set up as part of their will. Equally if they want the contents of their accounts to die with them then that is what should happen.

As has been pointed out attempts to hack access after their death, regardless of the claimed motive, is a crime and should be prosecuted as such.

wymondham

This is why you should always have a list of your accounts/passwords available for the time you die (sealed or locked away etc). So much is online now that often vital data is denied those that need it once a loved one dies...

Undervalued

wymondham wrote: »

This is why you should always have a list of your accounts/passwords available for the time you die (sealed or locked away etc). So much is online now that often vital data is denied those that need it once a loved one dies...

Only if there is nothing you wish to keep private on those accounts / devices! Simpler and safer would be to share the information you want shared with a "loved one" while you are both still alive.