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Family testimony presses committee to clarify access to decedents' electronic accounts
Summary
Family representatives and consultants described problems relatives face obtaining access to an email account after a death and urged lawmakers to revisit U.S. uniform models and Massachusetts practice to ensure executors can manage digital estate items.
Charles Glick testified in support of H.1968, seeking to make explicit how fiduciaries may access a decedent's electronic mail accounts. He described a family's effort after a brother's death to use his email account for funeral and memorial communications and being denied by the Internet service provider. Glick traced the history of the Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (EUFADA) and related commercial responses: early uniform efforts allowed executors broader access but were later modified after technology companies resisted disclosure, producing versions that require the deceased’s explicit consent for content access. Glick urged the committee to craft legislation that avoids unintended loss of estate access for families and to reject versions that would remove rights recently affirmed in Massachusetts jurisprudence. Committee members asked for clarifying drafting to reconcile privacy concerns with survivors' needs; witnesses said they would work with ISPs on workable statutory language and noted the state’s Supreme Judicial Court has previously addressed related questions. The chairs invited written proposals and additional stakeholder engagement with technology providers.
