Online Account Instructions for Your Partner: An Adelaide Parent’s Plan So the Kids’ Photos Aren’t Lost

You’re parenting in Adelaide — school-age kids, a partner, and somewhere between fifteen and forty online accounts holding the family’s actual life. The photos from when your eldest was born are in one cloud library. The school portal logins are in a password manager. The shared streaming account has the kids’ watch profiles. If something happened to you tomorrow, your partner wouldn’t need your master password — they’d need to know which accounts even exist, and which ones to fight to recover first.

The problem

Australian families routinely lose access to a deceased person’s photos, correspondence, and digital identity because no one knew which accounts existed. Provider deceased-user processes vary widely — Google, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft each run different recovery and memorialisation workflows, and most require account identifiers (the exact email address, the username) before they’ll even open a case. Without an inventory, your partner is guessing which provider holds what, and every provider’s “next of kin” team will ask them to prove which accounts to ask about.

The Privacy Act 1988 governs how personal information is handled in Australia, and your photos, messages, and contacts are exactly that — personal information about you, your partner, and your children. When accounts are abandoned because no one knew they existed, that information isn’t recovered. It’s stranded behind a login no one can reach.

Your partner doesn’t need your passwords. They need to know: which providers hold the family’s photos, which email address is the recovery contact for everything else, which accounts you want closed, and which accounts you want preserved for the kids.

What the Digital Legacy Vault does

The Digital Legacy Vault is an asset-instruction register: you record what you own, where to find it, and who you’ve nominated to receive the instructions. The simplified version (built for individuals and families) records, per online account: the provider (Google, Apple, Meta, Dropbox, 1Password, Steam, Qantas Frequent Flyer, etc.), the username or email identifier, whether a recovery contact is configured, and your closure or preservation preference for that account. It does NOT hold passwords, recovery codes, 2FA seeds, or password manager master keys. Your partner sees the inventory you’ve prepared for them, only when you’ve released it.

The boundary matters: the Digital Legacy Vault is not a credential store, not a custody service, and not a financial advice service. It’s an instructions register. That’s what keeps it outside the AFSL regime and outside AUSTRAC reporting — and it’s why the simplified version can be a straightforward subscription rather than a regulated product.

How it works

  1. You list each account that matters — the provider, the username or email address, and a short note about what’s in it (family photos, kids’ school records, shared subscriptions, loyalty points).
  2. For each account, you record whether you’ve set up the provider’s own recovery contact or legacy contact feature (Apple Legacy Contact, Google Inactive Account Manager, Facebook Legacy Contact). The Digital Legacy Vault tracks which you’ve configured, not the credentials.
  3. You mark each account as preserve (the kids’ photo libraries, the shared family email) or close (old gaming accounts, dormant social profiles).
  4. You name your partner as the recipient for the online accounts module and they accept. If something happens, they’re notified per your release rules and see only this module — not your other modules unless you’ve released them too.
  5. Your partner contacts each provider directly using the username and a death certificate, following that provider’s deceased-user process. The vault accelerates the knowing what exists step — the providers still run their own workflows.

Why this matters in Adelaide

Adelaide families tend to hold longer continuous digital histories than the national average — the same email address for fifteen years, the same iCloud account since the first iPhone, the same Facebook account since university. That depth is a gift to the kids if it’s preserved and a tragedy if it’s lost. Parents in Adelaide also frequently run blended household systems — one partner manages the family Google account, the other manages Apple and the password manager — which means neither partner has a complete picture of the other’s account inventory. A clear instruction set, prepared while both partners are healthy, is what closes that gap.

Sources

Join the waitlist

Join the waitlist — first access when the Digital Legacy Vault opens for Adelaide parents

We’re opening waitlist access in tranches. Sign up to be notified when parents in Adelaide can register their first online accounts module. The Digital Legacy Vault holds instructions about what exists and how your partner can find it — not your passwords, not your recovery codes, and not your password manager master key.