Till Death Do Us Share The Law and Social Norms of Digital Remains
January 18, 2023
The Sonia and Edward Kossoy Conference Room (Room 307), Buchmann Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University
During our digital lives, we constantly create a trail of personal data: emails we exchanged, photos we posted on social media or stored on mobile devices and cloud storage, purchases we made, search inquiries we submitted, “swipe right”, “likes” and “shares”, as well as meta-data about our locations, contacts, and much more. Once people die, the data become digital remains. Social norms about memorialization, access and control are yet to be established; technologies facilitate posthumous management of digital remains but have not gained broad acceptance, and the law is still debating whether to intervene and how, with different approaches undertaken in different jurisdictions.
The workshop will facilitate in-depth discussions among scholars who study various aspects of the topic, from legal and media and communications studies perspectives. We will inquire theoretical approaches, and explore empirical work on online memorialization and users’ perspectives.
The workshop is based on advanced drafts of works in progress. It is co-organized by the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics and the Chief Justice Meir Shamgar Center for Digital Law and Innovation.
Academic organizers: Prof. Michael Birnhack & Dr. Tal Morse.
