The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Should Care

by Carl Öhman

A short, thought-provoking book about what happens to our online identities after we die.These days, so much of our lives takes place online—but what about our afterlives? Thanks to the digital trails that we leave behind, our identities can now be reconstructed after our death. In fact, AI technology is already enabling us to “interact” with the departed. Sooner than we think, the dead will outnumber the living on Facebook. In this thought-provoking book, Carl Öhman explores the increasingly urgent question of what we should do with all this data and whether our digital afterlives are really our own—and if not, who should have the right to decide what happens to our data.The stakes could hardly be higher. In the next thirty years alone, about two billion people will die. Those of us who remain will inherit the digital remains of an entire generation of humanity—the first digital citizens. Whoever ends up controlling these archives will also effectively control future access to our collective digital past, and this power will have vast political consequences. The fate of our digital remains should be of concern to everyone—past, present, and future. Rising to these challenges, Öhman explains, will require a collective reshaping of our economic and technical systems to reflect more than just the monetary value of digital remains.As we stand before a period of deep civilizational change, The Afterlife of Data will be an essential guide to understanding why and how we as a human race must gain control of our collective digital past—before it is too late.

Genres: Nonfiction, Technology, Philosophy, Science, Sociology, Cultural

207 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 22, 2024

Reviews

[Chance Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I die, I would love to be made into jerky, but now I'm not sure what to do with my data...

[Carlosfelipe Pardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly interesting, to the point and well researched. Not a topic for everyone but I highly recommend it

[Chelsea Lawson · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took some time for me to find this book interesting. The author’s key point is that social media and AI have radically changed death and how the living relate to the dead, and I don’t totally agree with that. The way I see it, social media posts are not actually that different from people leaving behind journals and books. Websites capitalizing off of the dead is not so different from funeral homes making money. AI can indeed do unprecedented things in terms of eerily bringing people back to life, but I don’t see that actually being used in a widespread enough way to change society.

However, I like the new vocabulary that the author introduces to think about the questions being posed to society, like “digital remains,” and there are certainly some tricky questions and issues that we will face in the coming years. When it comes to privacy and the sanctity of digital remains, I didn’t think about how valuable the data can be when aggregated and analyzed (I.e., studying the conversations of people who committed suicide or used drugs to look for patterns), and the tension that this may have with respecting the dead.

[Jackson Murray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve heard multiple times that the dead will outnumber the living on Facebook by 2050; This book takes that fact and runs with it. It explores some immensely fascinating and little-talked about questions about our data, specifically its fate after we die. It’s crazy but the data we produce through our collective online presence will serve as historical documentation of entire generations. The ethical questions of what data should be preserved/deleted, how this should be decided, and by whom are therefore pressing and affect everyone. One of the author’s main points is how we have agreed-upon procedures for dealing with the physical remains of our dead, but we have little plan regarding digital remains. The book doesn’t attempt to give any answers, is slightly redundant, and mostly surface-level but I think it’s valuable for its thought-provoking nature and for the awareness it spreads.

[Selle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary. A must read for everyone.

[Natalie Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5! Oh gosh, this book did give me a headache thinking about how we have put our digital heritage nearly entirely in the hands of for-profit corporations, but it was a fascinating read nonetheless! Love when I finish a book and feel like I ought to delete all my accounts and throw my phone into the sea

[Potato✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such an interesting read. I never gave much thought to what would happen to my data after I die, and this book poses so many questions to think about. Sometimes it just feels like we are at the mercy of the giant tech corporations who own all of our data, and we can only hope that our collective actions can lead to protecting and preserving, without putting profits first.

I really enjoyed the comparisons of the digital dead to history’s dead. While some of our online postings might seem like trash, historians have learned so much from the trash they have unearthed from hundreds of years ago. The idea that people hundreds of years from now can get a very clear picture of how normal people lived their lives today based on their post-mortal data is fascinating (if the earth doesn’t melt or collapse by then, or if any of that data is decided as necessary to preserve).

[Rob Sedgwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

(Note: I received an advanced reader copy of this book courtesy of NetGalley)

The Afterlife of Data is an academic book. It has a subtitle: "What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Should Care" which doesn't sound particularly academic. It's an interesting subject, and one I have often been curious about, so I chose this book. I was hoping I suppose for it to be more of a guide on how to manage your data while you are alive. The truth is the book raises more questions than answers and one of its main themes is that we are all trusting our digital remains to a handful of corporate entities who don't really know what to do with it and whose raison d'etre is to make money.

The first part of the book looks at parallels in the past in human cultures and how we treat the dead. Much of it is about the ethics of our legacies after we die and there are many philosophical discussions including quotes from actual philosophers. I found as the book progressed that the narrative often came back to interesting real-world examples, only to deviate into a long discourse of what it all meant.

As someone who has researched my family tree, something that resonated with me is how priceless our data is. Most of our ancestors have left so little. Before the 1841 census, there was almost nothing and no photographs until about 150 years ago. Now, the opposite is true, we leave unbelievable quantities of data for the future to sift through. Twitter alone could be like the Doomsday Book for future generations. But to Twitter, it's a commercial commodity.

Who owns our data after we die? The author picks a good illustration of some of the moral issues about our remains. Max Brod decided not to destroy Kafka's novels (as instructed) after his friend's death. I often think of Thomas Hardy's second wife Florence who destroyed all his papers (as instructed) on his death and what a great loss that was for posterity. But which is right?

As far as my personal actions upon reading this book. I will a) think about what data I need to pass on, and what I want to; b) make what platform settings changes I can; c) look into after-death bots (an interesting phenomenon alluded to in the book). Obviously, big decisions need to be made at some stage by the world's leaders, the author himself doesn't suggest any real solutions, raising the area as one that needs (much) consideration. But will it receive it, and is there anything ordinary people can do to make this happen? Probably not much, other than asking for it to be considered when asked for feedback.

Something he didn't mention is encrypted data. Is this something that should be kept or destroyed? What about private keys? Lots of cryptocurrencies for example will die with their owners who don't pass on information that only they possess. This is a massive issue! Although almost certainly the future will be able to decode them eventually, but should they?

If you are looking for a hands-on guide to managing your digital remains this is not the book for you. If you are interested in the ethics of digital remains then you will probably like it.

[Natasha den Dekker · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Read as part of my work bookclub]

I've been reading a bit of this book everyday before I start work (which I'm realising is a great way to consume non-fiction - business in the morning, fun at night). And first and foremost while it is a *short* read it is very dense. I've annotated and tabbed my throughout because it's incredibly interesting and fascinating and something that I've been interested in in a long time - the intersection between having digital lives BUT what happens to them when we die.

And we, as a society don't actually have a plan for this - it's an addendum to wills etc.

Ohman outlines all the ways in which we could seek to understand this problem (because it is a problem, environmentally, socially, morally) and it's a great read - there's a lot of philosophy and honestly I challenge anyone writing in lowkey philosophical/policial books WITHOUT mentioning either Herodotus or The Aeneid, honestly tho! I was a bit suprised that he spoke about Burke and Hobbes but not about JS Mill (I do think the harm principle would have some validity here). BUT we did get a Black Mirror chapter (YAAS) but no chapter about Upload which is such a shame! The premise of Upload is chilling, dystopian and scarily close to what could happen to us when we die.

Anyway, I digress, why doesn't it have 5 stars? Because I think the focus on megalithic corporations (Meta, Twitter <- lol this dates it) removes the fact that governments, banks, energy companies all hold a LOT of data about us, that as a historian would be supremely interesting and actually we don't really have any techno-social laws about what we do with our data after we die.

If you're interested in this area OR work in this field I really recommend it.

[Zen Jayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the Natufian period to modern times, the burial of the dead evolved, which also changed how the descendants memorize the deceased.

This book points out an emerging situation: Digital remains will soon flood our servers, and society needs to start developing infrastructure or brainstorming decision-making rationales about how to deal with them after defining their nature as either privacy or property left behind. For now, Facebook has a service to change the deceased account into a memorial under the legacy custodian service. Twitter once donated its archive to Congress as historical materials reflecting people's lives in the 21st century. Yet, these decisions were not set by law but decided entirely by the profit-driven companies. Hence, the author advocated more active involvement of the public in the decision-making process. Personally, if I want to avoid letting the big company decide what to do with my data, how should I handle my digital footprints from now on?

Meanwhile, the author also mentioned the digital afterlife industry which sounds quite new to me from building chatbots imitating the deceased, or the prayer app to continue sending out dua (invocation) in previous commands to the chatbot that allows you to chat with historical figures. So do I care about this 'afterlife' that I could live or do I wish to continue to exist in such a way in the afterlife? How does it impact the people around you? It is authentic?

This book urged us to think about our digital lives in a new light. I hope I can learn more about how data centres work and their capacity and energy consumption situation in the future.

[Nancy Indra Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before reading this book, I had no idea about the ancient customs of the Natufians: their burying the bodies of their dead amongst their foundations and the heads above their foundations, and how different or similar they were to our own. I had never pondered the term archeopolitan—as citizens of the archive—nor had I given much thought to the Digital Afterlife Industry as much as I should.

This book also presented a lot of ideas I had already been familiar with while giving me time to think about them through the authors eloquence. For example, he says “…the marketization of our digital remains is so problematic. It reduces our choices to a mere question of profit. To the myriad of complex and nuanced questions we stand before—Whose data should be preserved for posterity? Where does one strike the line between the interests of the living versus the interests of the dead? Who should have the right to a person’s digital remains?—the market has but one answer: whatever is more profitable in the long term. Sometimes this answer aligns with what we consider the correct option, and sometimes it does not….” And “challenges posed by the post-mortal condition cannot be solved within the covers of one single book” And also, he reminds us how “[w]e are newcomers to the archive; let us not be its colonizers.” These suggestions and observations are apt and prescient. I am a better—more educated person while prepared for the future for reading this book.

[Edward Buckton]

A fascinating and thought-provoking assessment of some of the challenges ahead for our society - and, refreshingly not with the usual guilty conscience that comes with books about climate change or politics, but instead with a genuine sense of awe at the changing tides of history. Though Öhman doesn't offer false consolations, nor is the book flooded with despair.

It's clear that we face a number of unprecedented decisions as the future approaches, which Carl Öhman illuminates succinctly and clearly. What do we do when the authorship of online history is the responsibility of billionaires? How does our relationship with the dead change when we can interact with their facsimiles? And does the government need to have a hand in the way we grieve digitally?

A small number of Öhman's arguments are less convincing - I didn't buy the dichotomy he draws between the "property" and "corpse-like" interpretations of digital remains - but that might come from his position as a political scientist rather than a philosopher. Nonetheless, at a breezy ~200 pages, this largely accessible and remarkably coherent book is a must-read for anybody who is interested in how our civilization will change with technology.

[Craig Dickson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really interesting and thought-provoking read, though perhaps a little more academic or philosophical in its prose than what I'm used to reading these days (not a failing of the book, a failing of mine).

The basic idea is that as we create more and more data through our online activity, we are changing the way that our civilisation interacts with and deals with the dead. As people pass away and leave their 'informational corpses' online, we need to start thinking about how we deal with this, and how we want these things to be handled. Öhman argues that these digital remains are not just property, but should be treated with dignity, and he makes a very convincing case.

No easy answers here, but an interesting deep-dive into something I've only considered tangentially before. I'm not sure how we get past the fact that it's profit-maximising corporations for the most part in charge of these data, but hopefully we (as a society or a civilisation or whatever) can get a grip on this to make sure that future historians have some reasonable data to work with while also ensuring that the wishes and the privacy of individual deceased people are respected, to a point.

Like I said, thought-provoking.

[Adrianna Heaney-velu · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The Afterlife of Data” by Carl Ohman

This is not a self-help book to managing data for death but a philosophical book on the societal issues of corporations controlling our personal data even after death. The book has so many great questions about the different issues that are possible with the data being out in the universe when we die without proper guidelines in place of who controls it and why and how they will use that data. The thought of leaving pieces behind for future generations sounds very useful but there is a much darker side to what corporations and governments could do with those pieces is pretty scary. The entire book gave me a lot to think about how little control we actually have regardless of our wants and wishes. I gave the book a 3 out of 5 stars.

[Michael Pashos · Rating 3 out of 5]

All in all an informative and interesting read. I was convinced of Ohman’s central argument, that managing the trove of data we leave behind will become a huge challenge as the world ages and the digital dead begin to pile up.

However the philosophy presented in the book was pretty muddled at times, and Ohman did not submit very many solutions to this problem. He clearly admits this is not the goal of his book, but it’s hard to be satisfied when you hear about a big problem without any way to tackle it.

[YJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

i liked how the chapters were well organised. ohman follows a very clear structure building up his points:
- society's relationship to the dead, from past to present
- defining death in the digital age, digital remains and dignity
- problems with the "digital afterlife" industry
- decisions and valuation with digital remains
- the post mortal condition

the book defines and presents the problem in an intriguing way, but dont expect solutions here

[Alice · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a really important topic given the mountains of digital data and artifacts we are leaving these days but unfortunately this is written in such an academic tone (and meanders all over the place) that it's hard to grasp the main point. I'm not even sure the author has a solution that he's proposing. Definitely not a book that's written for general audiences.

[Konstantin Kondov · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book presents a problem, which reveals a huge gap between the current way we handle private data and what is expected from us as “archeopolitans” (citizen or resident of an archive, a term used to describe people in the digital age), the solving of which can reshape the whole (digital) world as we know it.

[Isaac Anteby · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting perspective on something we often think of as trivial - what happens to all of the digital data that dead people leave behind? This books seeks to ask more questions than it answers but i enjoyed the thought experiments

[Anne Bennett · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking for a much more simple answer than what I got with this book. I was hoping for advice of what to do with Mom's digital remains when she dies. According to this book there are no simple answers.

[Erik Olsson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book excellently showcases how our privacy is at stake in the near future, and, maybe more importantly, what we can do to save it.

[Shawn Aebi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Raises some helpful points about limitations of GDPR and privacy laws today and certainly nails the difficulty surviving family members have to corral the data for those that pass.

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thought-provoking and well-researched.

[Bill Morgan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meanders and fails to deliver

[J.J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This work does a particularly good job of orienting our present moment within the long history of how we humans have dealt with both death and what remains of those who die. This approach is certainly helpful with developing an a deeper understanding of what is unique about our present moment and the ways it might resemble the past. In that way, the weight of the choices that we're making now are very well presented. That is, arguably, the greatest strength of this work. We are creating so much data about so many people, and it is not feasible that it can all be saved forever. What do we do in light of that? This book posits that question brilliantly.

On the other hand, the analysis of our present moment is all too swept up in the tides of capitalism. The author very correctly points out that even companies and organizations that feel very permanent, like Meta or Alphabet, or even perhaps Ancestry.com, will inevitably close or be sold. We saw a change in Twitter completely alter its relationship to archival research, as Elon Musk made it virtually inaccessible to academics. Even governmental regulation falls under this critique -- no institution lasts forever. Öhman clearly struggles with how to approach the preservation of our data from this long-term perspective of hundreds or even thousands of years. That struggle is certainly worthwhile.

These questions are so big as to guarantee they are entirely out of our control. Even if we could all work together collectively to make changes now across the globe, that doesn't generate any certainty that our descendants in two hundred years will agree and maintain those practices. I do wish, that in the context of these difficult long-term questions, this book could also tackle the question from a more personal perspective. This is hinted at here and there, but never fully addressed. For those of who accept the premise of the book, and want to be stewards of our data afterlife, what can we do individually? This is a conversation worth having.

Beyond the academic philosophers and media theorists who will be interested in this work (and I'm one of those), I also feel this book will be relevant to those with professional or hobby interests in genealogy (of which I am also one), though they will have to put in a little work to make some connections that aren't drawn explicitly in the book. It's a short read, and the jargon is minimal, making it accessible to a wide audience.

[Adam Ferrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should I care that this review will outlive me?
The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Should Care argues that you and I are the first in a generation of archeopolitans who live (and will die) in a perpetually archived online environment. Like coral, our data accumulates and builds rich ecosystems even as we die off, and the exclusive owners of this potential treasure are corporations, primarily Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. Whether these corporations delete my data, mine it for purchase history, or use it to train models won't matter to me experientially, but has everything to do with human dignity. If we leave matters as they stand our online lives (and deaths) will be the primary record of our existence and will be ripe for profit-driven exploitation.
The author makes strong arguments for our more considered involvement in these decisions and the book introduced me to stunning new ideas - one example: stone was used in burial sites long before homes, so the first houses were more "tombs for the living" than graves were "houses for the dead." 5/5
And for anyone reading this after my demise, please delete my search history.

[Lisa Davidson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is more philosophical and talks about issues concerning the digital data of someone else has died. Who has the right to that data? Should it be saved, or shared? Should it be destroyed?
The most poignant story was about a boy who was unable to play on a gaming system after his father died. They had spent a lot of quality time playing together, and it hurt too much for years, but eventually the son played their game again and discovered the "ghost" of his father still in the game, which made him happy.
There are also issues about regulation and accessibility. If you are interested in what happens to data after someone dies, this is an interesting book.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this

[Rosie Grant · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for anyone in MLIS studies.