Signal Digital death cleaning as pre-mortem admin

Summary

This signal is digital death cleaning, the process of organising and clearing out one's digital footprint before dying. Sitra cites a September 2024 article arguing that everyone needs a plan for doing this. The idea extends the familiar practice of tidying one's belongings late in life to online accounts, files and traces. It treats the digital estate as something a person should settle in advance rather than leave to relatives. In Sitra's imagined future magazine, tips on digital death cleaning open a self-help column on preparing for death. The signal sits alongside related ones about archiving one's life and curating personal data for a virtual afterlife.