A person appears to have two choices for what happens to their Facebook account upon death:
- Have the account permanently deleted; or
- Appoint a “legacy contact” to look after a memorialized account.
No one can log into a memorialized account if there is no legacy contact.
A legacy contact is someone who can look after a person’s profile after they are deceased if its memorialized. Without it – no ability to manage profile.
Here are a few things a legacy contact can do (this is a limited sample):
- Write a pinned post for your profile (ex: share a final message or provide info about memorial service)
- View posts
- Decide who can see post tributes and delete post tributes also.
- Respond to new friend requests.
- Download a copy of what you’ve shared on FB
- Request account removal
Per FB, here is how you add a legacy contact for your main profile:
- Click your profile picture in the top right of Facebook.
- Select Settings & privacy, then click Settings.
- Click Accounts Center, then click Personal details.
- Click Account ownership and control.
- Click Memorializationand select your account.
- Click Memorialize account, then click Next.
- Type a friend’s name into the text box, then click on their profile picture.
- Select whether to give your legacy contact permission to download a copy of what you’ve shared on Facebook
- Click Save.
- To let your friend know they’re now your legacy contact, click Send, or click Skipif you do not want to notify them.
To change a legacy contact, follow steps 1–6 above, then select your legacy contact. From there, you can choose a new legacy contact if you’d like.
To remove your legacy contact, follow steps 1–5 above, then click Delete after death.
Note: You must be 18 or older to select a legacy contact.