Online Account Instructions for Your Partner: A Melbourne Parent’s Plan So the Family Photos Don’t Disappear

You’re a parent in Melbourne. Between you and your partner there are probably forty online accounts that matter to the kids — the Gmail with seven years of school correspondence, the iCloud library with every photo since the first ultrasound, the Google Photos backup nobody can remember the login for, the password manager that holds all the rest, the Facebook account with the messages from grandparents who’ve already died, the Xbox account with the kids’ saves. If something happens to you, your partner needs to know those accounts exist before they can recover any of them.

The problem

Australian families routinely lose access to a deceased person’s email, photos, and digital identity — not because providers refuse to help, but because nobody knew which accounts existed in the first place. Provider deceased-user processes vary wildly: Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft each have a different form, a different proof-of-death standard, and a different timeline. Some require a recovery contact set up before death. Some require a court order. Most require that you know the account exists and can name the username.

Your partner doesn’t need your passwords. ASIC’s MoneySmart estate planning guidance is clear that wills cover assets, not the practical question of where things are. What your partner needs is an inventory: which providers, which usernames or email addresses, whether a legacy contact or recovery contact is already configured, and what you’d like done with each account (memorialise the Facebook, close the gaming accounts, preserve the photo library for the children). Without that list, the photos of the kids’ first years can sit behind a login nobody can crack — effectively gone.

What the Digital Legacy Vault does

The Digital Legacy Vault is an asset-instruction register: you record what you own online, 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, your username or account email, whether you’ve set up the provider’s native recovery or legacy contact, and your closure or preservation preference. 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 2FA seeds.

The boundary matters: because the Digital Legacy Vault holds no credentials and no assets, it is not a financial product, not a custody service, and not an advice service. That keeps it outside the AFSL regime under Corporations Act Part 7.6 and outside AUSTRAC AML/CTF reporting. It also means the personal information inside is governed by the Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles — your partner only sees what you’ve authorised, when you’ve authorised it.

How it works

  1. You add each significant online account to your vault — provider, username or account email, and a short note on what’s inside that matters (the kids’ photos, the school emails, the password manager).
  2. For each account, you record whether you’ve set up the provider’s own recovery contact or legacy contact (Apple Legacy Contact, Google Inactive Account Manager, Facebook Legacy Contact), and you note your preference: preserve, memorialise, or close.
  3. You name your partner as the recipient for the online accounts module and they accept. The vault records their consent under the Privacy Act.
  4. If something happens, your partner is notified per your release rules and sees only the online accounts module — not your superannuation, not your other modules unless you’ve released them.
  5. Your partner contacts each provider directly using the inventory, follows that provider’s deceased-user process, and uses the legacy contact you set up in advance where it exists. The vault accelerates the finding step, not the provider’s process.

Why this matters in Melbourne

Melbourne parents tend to accumulate digital accounts across long stretches — a Hotmail address from a university in Carlton, a Gmail set up when you moved into a first share house in Brunswick, the iCloud bought when the first iPhone arrived, the family Google account opened when the eldest started primary school. The photo libraries especially are spread across two or three providers per parent. Recovery options that were set up a decade ago point at phone numbers you no longer have. A clear inventory — provider, username, recovery contact status — is the difference between your partner spending an afternoon contacting four providers and your children growing up without the photos of their early years.

Sources

Join the waitlist

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

We’re opening waitlist access in tranches. Sign up to be notified when parents in Melbourne 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 2FA seeds.