Every day, we entrust an ever-growing share of our lives to the digital world: photographs, conversations, and, more generally, personal data. But what happens to this intangible heritage when we are no longer here? Digital inheritance is a topic that concerns each of us, yet few people plan for it.<\/p>\n
The expression digital inheritance should be understood in a broad sense and encompasses a heterogeneous set of legal relationships, often not identifiable a priori.<\/p>\n
In general, it is possible to distinguish between:<\/p>\n
Digital assets can also be distinguished based on their nature:<\/p>\n
Not everything digital is automatically inheritable. Specifically, the following are NOT<\/strong> part of digital inheritance:<\/p>\n In Italy, there is still no comprehensive legislation dedicated to digital succession.<\/p>\n The main regulatory reference is Article 2-terdecies of the Privacy Code (Legislative Decree 196\/2003<\/a>), which provides for the continuation, among others, of the rights of access (Art. 15 of the GDPR), rectification and erasure (Arts. 16 and 17 of the GDPR) and restriction of processing (Art. 18 of the GDPR) after death. These rights may be exercised by those with a legitimate interest of their own, by an agent designated by the deceased, or by those acting for family reasons deserving of protection.<\/p>\n\n
The regulatory framework<\/strong><\/h2>\n