Digital will in France: what the law says

No. The French Civil Code recognises three ordinary forms of will:

• •The holographic will (Article 970): it must be "written in full, dated and signed by the hand of the testator". A text typed on a computer and printed out, even if signed by hand, does not meet this requirement.
• •The authentic will (Article 971): it is drawn up by a notary, in the presence of a second notary or two witnesses.
• •The mystic will (Article 976): it is handed over closed and sealed to a notary, in the presence of two witnesses.

An email, an online document, a video or a voice message is therefore not a will, however sincere its author. To make sure a will is found, the notary can register it in the Central Register of Last Wishes (Fichier central des dispositions de dernières volontés), which notaries check for every estate.

What people commonly call a "digital will" actually covers two different things: your instructions about your data (governed by the French Data Protection Act) and your messages and practical information for your loved ones (which have no legal value, but great value for your family).

The GDPR does not protect the data of deceased persons: its Recital 27 leaves it to member states to set rules. France did so with Article 63 of Act No. 2016-1321 of 7 October 2016 for a Digital Republic, which created Article 40-1 of the Act of 6 January 1978. Since that Act was rewritten in 2018, these rules have appeared in its Article 85.

The principle: your rights over your data end when you die, but they can be extended in two ways.

• •Through your instructions: anyone can set instructions on how their personal data should be kept, erased and shared after their death.
• •Through your heirs, if you have not planned anything or if your instructions do not prevent it, within specific limits (see below).

The same article also places an obligation on online services: they must inform users of what will happen to their data when they die and let them choose whether or not it should be passed on to a third party of their choice. This is where the settings offered by Facebook, Google and Apple come from, as described in our guide What Happens to Online Accounts After Death?

Article 85 distinguishes between two types of instructions:

• •General instructions cover all of your data. The law provides that they can be registered with a trusted digital third party certified by the CNIL (the French data protection authority), and that their references can be recorded in a single register whose terms are to be set by a decree of the Conseil d'État.
• •Specific instructions concern a particular service and are registered with that service. They require your specific consent: simply accepting the terms of use is not enough.

In both cases, you can change or withdraw your instructions at any time, and name a person responsible for carrying them out. After your death, this person will be entitled to read them and ask the services concerned to apply them. If nobody is named, your heirs take on this role.

In practice, specific instructions are the easiest to put in place: they are the memorialisation or inactive account settings offered by the major platforms. For general instructions, check the CNIL website to see how far the trusted third party and register system provided for by the law has progressed; failing that, nothing stops you from writing them down, dating and signing them, and handing them to the person responsible for carrying them out or to your notary.

If there are no instructions, or if they do not say otherwise, heirs can exercise certain rights over the deceased person's data, but only to the extent necessary:

• •to organise and settle the estate: obtaining information needed to wind up the estate, and recovering digital assets that form part of it (including family keepsakes);
• •to have the death taken into account by services: having accounts closed, objecting to further processing of the data, or having it updated.

This is a limited right, not general access: the law does not allow heirs to read through all of a deceased person's emails out of mere curiosity. That is why settings made during your lifetime (legacy contact, Inactive Account Manager) and a clear list of accounts make all the difference for your family.

Yes. As soon as they have financial value, they follow the ordinary rules of inheritance:

• •Money held online (online bank account, payment wallet, online money pot);
• •Crypto assets, provided the heirs can access them: without the recovery phrase or the login details for the platform, they can be lost in practice;
• •Copyright in your writing, photos, music or software: economic rights last 70 years after the author's death (Article L123-1 of the French Intellectual Property Code);
• •A website, a domain name or an online shop, which have value and subscriptions to manage.

On the other hand, films, music and ebooks bought on a platform are usually personal licences to use: platform terms generally state that they cannot be passed on. Check the terms of each service if this represents significant value.

For these financial matters, the right person to talk to is still the notary. The letters and practical information you leave cannot change how your assets are divided.

Think of it in four layers, from the most legal to the most personal:

• •Your will (handwritten or drawn up by a notary) for your assets, including valuable digital assets.
• •Specific instructions with each major service: Facebook legacy contact, Google Inactive Account Manager, Apple Legacy Contact.
• •Your general instructions and the person responsible for carrying them out, in writing. Our guide Digital Trusted Person: What Is It For? will help you choose that person.
• •Your messages and practical information: what you want to say to each person, and what your family will need to know (papers, contracts, accounts, where to find access details). Our guide How to Pass On Your Passwords to Your Family explains how to do this safely.

Laterly covers this last layer: your letters and your practical file are kept encrypted and delivered to your loved ones on the date you choose or if you stop responding, after your trusted person has been alerted. It is not a will and it does not replace a notary. To see how it works step by step, visit the How it works page.