Blogs, homepages of deceased neglected

By Lee Hyo-sik

Staff reporter

In an increasingly digitalized world, individuals these days leave not only cash, houses and other tangible properties behind, but also so-called "digital assets," such as blogs, homepages and email accounts.

But these digital properties of the deceased are not adequately maintained and largely left neglected as the bereaved are unable to claim digital assets of their dead family members under the current law.

Particularly, homepages of former President Roh Moo-hyun, the late actress Choi Jin-sil and other deceased celebrities are still frequently visited by many Internet users. But their sites are not properly operated and managed, with no one else knowing the sites' IDs and passwords because Web portals refuse to provide such personal information to third parties, citing relevant laws.

Under Korea's Information Telecommunication Act and the Telecommunication Secret Protection Act, Web portals are banned from providing IDs and passwords to anyone other than those who set up and operate homepages and email accounts.

It means that no one else is able to take over homepages, blogs and email accounts of the deceased unless he or she knows the IDs and passwords.

Against this backdrop, there is a growing voice among Internet industry pundits that Korea should introduce a law concerning digital property left by the dead to make it possible for bereaved families to inherit blogs and other digital estates, and decide what to do with them.

"Under the current law, we are barred from making public personal information of the decreased users of our blogs, homepages and email accounts, even at the request of their heirs and family members," an NHN spokeswoman said.

"This online-based personal information is not the subject of inheritance. Even a lawful heir cannot obtain IDs and passwords of the deceased unless the latter specifically agreed to it in a legal document." NHN operates the country's largest Web portal, Naver.

But she said the Web portal may consider releasing IDs and passwords of the dead in extraordinary circumstances. "We have so far never provided personal online information of the deceased. But if the bereaved families of the dead sailors from the sunken naval ship Cheonan request the release of IDs and passwords of their dead sons' homepages and email accounts, we will positively consider it."

If an email account holding critical information concerning the inheritance and the disclosure of IDs and passwords was requested by the court, the Web portal will also consider providing it.

"I think it is long overdue for us to introduce a concept of the inheritance of digital assets as more than 70 percent of Koreans now surf the Internet," she said. "But the universal disclosure of personal information on the cyberspace is not appropriate because it could fail to protect the privacy of the dead. We should approach the matter on a case-by-case basis."