CNIL Tackles Deadbots and Other Digital Death Privacy Issues
Nearly one-third of French people in a 2024 survey said they have been confronted on social media with content from people who have died, and half said they would prefer that data on social networks be deleted after their death, French DPA CNIL said Wednesday.
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The agency published a notebook, "Our Data After Us," about the challenges of digital death in conjunction with a debate on post-mortem data, including management, transfers and new uses.
The notebook considers the various dimensions of digital death: memory, heritage, transcendence and materiality. It also highlights the legal and ethical issues around managing data after death and advocates for raising public awareness, clarifying rights and regulating the use of post-mortem data.
Technology has made it possible to go beyond the promise of memory and mourning to new paths such as transhumanism, CNIL said, according to a translation. It's now possible to train conversational agents known as "deadbots" with data from deceased people so they interact as if the people were alive. That raises questions about whether individuals have a right not to become robots.
Post-mortem data, avatars and conversational agents are based on physical technical infrastructure, CNIL said. Preserving data has become "an exercise in itself" for people who want to keep their own data or that of deceased relatives in their own lifetime.
At the same time, digital solutions for backup and "digital survival" must be maintained to continue operating, prompting questions about the importance of digital death.
The DPA recommended, among other things, reminding people that their rights apply to data after death and that they should manage their data safely while alive. It also called for user experience design standards and clearer rules relating to rights holders.
In addition, people should be given information about mitigating risks associated with the use of AI on their post-mortem data, including deadbots, CNIL said.
Corporate handling of people's digital remains is one of the most pressing privacy issues, said Carl Ohman, a political science professor at Sweden's Uppsala University, during a London IAPP data protection conference in March (see Ref:2503120001]).
In addition to businesses wanting to monetize it, a bigger problem is that digital data could become the primary source of information left behind for future generations, leading to questions about how it should be managed, Ohman said.