how-should-digital-relics-be-handled Digital Archaeology

Digital Archaeology

How Should Digital Relics Be Handled?

About this topic

'Digital relics' refer to emails, SNS accounts, blogs, photos, videos, and other digital data left by the deceased. The question of how to handle them oscillates between individual privacy and societal memory. Should they be deleted or preserved, and who decides? It is a philosophical and ethical issue unique to the digital age: how to position 'existence after death'.

Conceptual positions
01 Total Preservationist

The view that all digital traces should be preserved as cultural heritage. It is important to leave as much data as possible for future historians.

02 Privacy Prioritist

The view that the deceased's privacy should be prioritized, and unnecessary data should be deleted. It respects the wishes expressed during life and limits 'grave visits' in the digital realm.

03 Selective Archivist

The view that only valuable items should be selectively preserved. Preserving all data is impractical, and curation is necessary.

04 Family Decisionist

The view that the handling of digital relics should be decided by the bereaved family or close relatives. It prioritizes personal emotions and relationships over law or institutions.

Talk entry points

  1. What would you want done with your SNS and emails after your death?

  2. Have you ever felt that viewing a deceased person's digital relics invaded their privacy?

  3. How do you think 'grave visiting' online differs from physical grave visiting?

  4. Does preserving all data enrich memory, or conversely dilute it?

  5. Who do you think 'owns' digital relics?

  6. How do you think we should pass on current internet culture to future generations?

Conceptual tensions
Preservation vsPrivacy
Is leaving data a gift to the future or an act that harms the dignity of the deceased? The question is how to balance the two.
Individual vsSociety
Is an individual's data their own, or part of society's memory? Digital archaeology always carries this tension.
Permanence vsForgetting
Between the illusion that digital lasts forever and the reality of degradation or deletion, how do we face memory?
Emotion vsInstitution
Between the emotions of the bereaved and the rules of laws and platforms, which should take priority?
Past vsFuture
Preserving past data deepens understanding of the future, but there is also the risk of being bound by the past.
Talk note

This theme is not about finding answers, but a space to put into words your own and others' 'digital views on life and death'. Please talk quietly while valuing both emotion and logic.

Glossary
Digital Heritage
A general term for digital data and online content left by the deceased or from the past. May hold value as cultural heritage.
Right to be Forgotten
The right of an individual to request the deletion of their personal information from search results, etc. Legislated in the EU and elsewhere.
Digital Estate
Issues surrounding the management and inheritance of the deceased's digital assets (accounts, passwords, data).
Web Archiving
The activity of periodically saving web pages on the internet for future access.
Data Degradation
The phenomenon where digital data becomes unreadable due to format changes or media degradation.
Talk prompts
Ice breaker

Think about how much data about your 10-year-ago self remains on your smartphone or PC. How do you feel when you imagine looking at it?

Deep dive

If you were to die tomorrow, how would you want your remaining digital data to be handled by family and friends? Please talk about it including the reasons.

Bridge

While listening to the other person talk about digital relics, try to listen while imagining: 'How does this person think about the deceased's privacy?'

Further questions
  • Is it possible or ethically permissible for AI to recreate a 'personality' from a deceased person's digital relics?
  • In the 'inheritance' of digital relics, how are non-blood relatives positioned?
  • Whose interests do platform (Google, Meta, etc.) data deletion policies serve?
  • Why does the difference in handling physical and digital relics arise?
  • About the possibility that 'deleted' data actually remains somewhere
  • What responsibility does a digital archaeologist bear as an 'excavator' of relics?