Closing a deceased relative’s accounts and data — what now?

Platforms have dedicated legacy flows, subscriptions can be ended with a death certificate, and “digital estate” access depends on national law — here is the sequence that spares you fights in the worst weeks.

Stop the money firstList active subscriptions and payments from bank statements. Banks freeze on notification of death; for subscription services a death certificate scan ends contracts — send one cancellation template to all, executors or next-of-kin can sign.
Use the big platforms’ legacy flowsGoogle (Inactive Account Manager / deceased-user form), Apple (Digital Legacy, or court-order route), Meta (memorialise or remove, legacy contact), Microsoft (next-of-kin process). Each has a form; each wants the death certificate and proof of relation.
Decide: memorialise, download, or deleteFamilies split on this — decide together before filing deletions, they are irreversible. Downloading content (photos!) comes before closing accounts; some platforms allow data release only with local court documents.
Watch for ghost profiles and adsRemove the deceased from marketing lists (objection in their name is honoured in practice), report impersonation or cloned profiles immediately — scammers work obituaries — and consider a short obituary-scam warning to vulnerable relatives.
Know your national baselineThe GDPR itself does not cover deceased persons (Recital 27) — but many countries protect post-mortem data by national law, and heirs’ access to accounts is increasingly recognised (German courts ordered Facebook to give parents access to a deceased child’s account). Where a platform stonewalls lawful heirs, cite your national rule or take legal advice.

The practical wisdom: platforms cooperate with their own processes and resist everything else — so lead with their forms, not with GDPR citations that technically do not apply to the deceased. Your OWN data in shared threads and photos remains yours, living and protected as ever. And the kindest gift to your own relatives: set up your legacy contacts and inactive-account instructions today — every ecosystem supports it, it takes ten minutes, and it converts this entire page from a legal fight into a handover.

🗺️Country differences. Post-mortem privacy and heirs’ access rights are genuinely national — from full statutory regimes to nothing but contract law. For estates with valuable or contentious digital assets, local succession advice pays for itself.

Sources:GDPR Recital 27 — deceased persons outside scope Your Europe — family & succession basics

Who has my data?Right to erasure Stop spam & marketing 📞 Who to contact

Verified against the sources above on 18 July 2026. Information, not legal advice.