Most people treat digital sovereignty as a problem for the living.
But control isn’t just about today.
At some point you won’t be here, and someone else will have to deal with the system you’ve built.
The Uncomfortable Truth
Death or incapacity happens.
Your:
- Password manager dies with your master key
- Domains expire
- Bills keep charging
- Family is left guessing how to access what matters
Sovereignty without a handover plan is fragility.
Identify What Matters
Not everything needs passing on:
- Critical: email, domains, banking, backups, ID
- Optional: social media, entertainment accounts
- Disposable: test VMs and the half-broken homelab you meant to fix
Separate the essential from the noise.
Document Access Securely
A succession plan isn’t “write passwords on a post-it”:
- Store an encrypted file with accounts and recovery instructions
- Keep decryption keys with a trusted executor or solicitor
- Specify where 2FA devices, hardware keys, and backups live
It has to be retrievable, not just secure.
Legal and Practical Prep
Depending on your jurisdiction:
- Include digital assets in wills or estate plans
- Check provider policies on death/inactivity
- Nominate someone competent to handle the tech side
If you don’t choose, someone else does — badly.
Automate Graceful Degradation
You can design for failure here too:
- Use inactivity triggers (e.g. Google’s Inactive Account Manager)
- Automate backups and handover of critical docs
- Consolidate to fewer providers to reduce complexity
Fail closed, not chaotically.
Why It’s Part of Sovereignty
Digital sovereignty isn’t hoarding control until the end.
It’s making sure the systems you built don’t collapse when you’re gone.
Control includes knowing how to let go well.
Build the handover before you need it.