David Cox: Today, I'm going to teach you how to create something referred
to as a digital legacy contact.
This is one of those things that every single iPhone user
should take the time to set up.
So please tell your friends and family!
That's coming up next on tech talk America.
When you assign someone as a legacy contact, you are essentially granting
them access to any data that you have stored inside of iCloud drive.
This includes your files, your photos, iMessages, contacts, calendars, and notes.
This information is only made available to that person if they are
listed as a legacy contact and can also provide a death certificate.
You should know that you can have multiple legacy contacts.
So if you have multiple kids, it's not a bad idea to add each of them.
And it's also not a bad idea to consider adding your lawyer.
Now, one of the important details that you should be aware of is that legacy contacts
do not have access to your passwords.
For me, I have kind of mixed emotions about this.
On one hand, I can understand it, but on the other hand, I wish
apple at least gave us an option.
So if you would like your legacy contacts to have access to your passwords, or maybe
even just some of your passwords, that is one of the things that I help people with
during my little tech therapy sessions.
We'll talk more about that later on.
For now, let me teach you how to set up a legacy contact.
To assign someone as a legacy contact on your iOS device, I want you to go into
settings and tap on your name at the time.
From there.
I want you to tap on security and passwords.
If you scroll down just a little bit on this next screen, you should see an
option that says add legacy contact.
We can now add that person by tapping on their contact info.
And when you get to their contact card, tap on their mobile.
You will now be presented with two options.
You can either send access through a text message, or it will give you an
access key that you can print out.
Before you choose which one you decided to go with,
I just want you to consider something.
Without a doubt, sending access through a text message is by far
the easiest method and it's instant, but there are a few what ifs.
For example, what happens if that person ever changes their phone number?
What if they ever switch from an iPhone to an Android?
I'm just saying there are potential problems with going with that option.
Alternatively, if you add an access code and then you print it out, that's
something that you could easily lose.
At the end of the day, you need to choose the best method that works for you.
My suspicion is that most of you will probably go with.
the option to send an access through a text message.
And that's exactly what I did.
At this point,
a message will be sent to your contact, letting them know that they
have been listed as a legacy contact.
And at this point, this brings us to the other side of things.
What happens if someone lists you as a legacy contact?
And then they pass away.
The first thing you'll need to do is go to the website, digital-legacy.apple.com.
And again, you will need to be listed as a legacy contact and also be able to provide
a death certificate for the deceased.
Once apple approves your request, you will then be given access to
the data for a total of three years.
If you ever need help with managing that data, I realize it can be
kind of overwhelming, especially just to have someone's entire
data collection dumped on you.
One of the things that I do when I'm not making these little YouTube
videos is I do one-on-one coaching.
I also work with couples and help them with whatever tech issues they need.
We do it all through zoom.
The entire session is recorded.
You get a copy of it.
So if you would ever like to take a little one-on-one session with me, you can find
out all of the information on my website.
At TechTalkAmerica.com thank you so much for watching everyone.
This is David A.
Cox with tech talk America.
Class dismissed.