[ch4ch4]

I don't understand this desire to make the Internet a "Safe Space" which doesn't offend anyone. The Internet is inherently "unsafe". If you can't stomach the thought of someone wishing a happy birthday to a dead dude, why not just let them know that the person is deceased?

As for confidential data, it should be encrypted at rest, so that the decryption key disappears along with the deceased. No estate or court order can decrypt that data.

[will_brown]

>As for confidential data, it should be encrypted at rest, so that the decryption key disappears along with the deceased.

That is not an answer solution to many issues. For example, I am an attorney and sole practitioner, if I were to die unexpectedly my clients would be entitled to get their case files, confidential/privileged/work product documentation can't just disappear upon my death and as others have suggested my estate could be liable for that just as likely as my estate could be liable for the same documents being release to any 3rd party. Separate and apart from liability I could simply prejudice my clients case in the instance of litigation either due loss of documentation or disclosure of the same to 3rd parties.

And these are not just hypotheticals, I worked in an office building where another attorney died unexpectedly of a heart attacker while driving, and there was no real procedure in place, simply many in the building rallied and took the case files and helped his clients, but who knows what documentation was lost and never recovered, alternatively there was very likely all kinds of breaches of professional responsibility and liability exposure, despite the realities of the legal community rallying and doing their best in a bad situation.

[Razengan]

>As for confidential data, it should be encrypted at rest, so that the decryption key disappears along with the deceased.

> That is not an answer solution to many issues.

What happens to memory in our brain when we die? What about the things that only we know and never tell anyone else?

Isn't that a problem? Should we make an attempt to recover a person's memories from their corpse?

We've been dealing with irrevocable losses upon death ever since humans started doing other things besides eating and reproducing. Our online passwords and porn stashes are, generally, just another item on the list of things that die with us.

----

My aunt, who was very much like a foster mother to me, died this year after spending 4 months in a comatose/vegetative state. Before that she had suffered a stroke which rendered her unable to write anything. So for the last couple years of her life, she was unable to leave behind her thoughts (I deeply regret not helping her use her iPad for that), and not even able to tell her family anything in the last few months, despite being able to see us and hear us.

We don't even have any recent pictures of her, let alone videos. I'm thinking of contacting her phone company and requesting if they could provide us with a recording from a random call, just so we can listen to her voice, but I doubt they will oblige.

[mmcwilliams]

I don't think what you're responding to is a desire to create a "safe space", but is actually pointing out a bad user experience. If an unintended consequence of your product is that it reminds users of deceased friends and relatives at inopportune times or in uncomfortable ways, I think it's worth exploring solutions to that.