E-Executor Services (EES)
E Executor Service is a service to assist the
legal heirs of a deceased person to take charge of the virtual assets left by a
deceased person.
At present ITA 2008 does not permit wills to
be written with the use of electronic documents. However a person can recognize
his electronic assets as assets and bequeath them to his legal heirs through a
physical instrument in the form of a Will. If a person has not written a will or
the will that he has executed fails to note the virtual assets, then he is
considered to have died intestate in respect of such virtual assets. In such
circumstances it would be necessary for the legal heirs to take control of the
virtual assets.
The virtual assets could be in the form of
e-mail accounts, websites, virtual drives, cloud assets etc which are controlled
through the use of passwords or other access control mechanisms. It may also
include licenses to software owned by the deceased persons.
In order to effect a smooth transfer of the
virtual assets it would be necessary to identify the available virtual assets
and change the registration details with the relevant asset controller.
Merely obtaining the password of the deceased
person and operating the account on behalf of a deceased person is not an
appropriate method since it may violate laws of "Impersonation".
It must be understood that the Cyber Space
regulation is still lacking in certain aspects of enforcement and some times the
asset controllers may not respond positively to genuine requests for change of
the ownership. Enforcement may also not be easy due to jurisdictional problems.
There may also be irresponsible service providers who may simply ignore all
requests or abandon the customer without any reason.
Corresponding with each of such service
providers and extracting the assets is therefore a tedious task and requires
effort which a normal executor of a Will may not normally be comfortable with.
CEAC therefore provides a service to assist
the legal heirs to take charge of the virtual assets of the deceased persons. It
also provides assistance to the service providers to archive virtual assets to
facilitate smooth transfer of virtual assets to the legal heirs.
The service includes the following:
a) Archiving of a Will :
i) If a person wants to archive a copy of
his written Will in scanned form any time he can use the "Will
Archival Service". This is a service where CEAC will only be a trusted
repository of the copy of the Will. CEAC will deliver a certified copy of
the deposited document under certification as per Section 65B if
Indian Evidence Act. This would be helpful as a copy in case the legal heirs
find it difficult to locate the original written Will.
ii) On request the written copy of the
Will can also be archived with CEAC. In such cases, CEAC would keep the Will
in safe custody in a safe deposit locker in one of the recognized Banks.
b) Acting as Executor for Virtual Assets: (Subject
to prior confirmation and only in select locations)
Any person may designate CEAC as his
"Executor for Virtual Assets" and provide powers to manage his virtual
assets through a written document. If the instrument is duly
registered as a Will it becomes operative as a Will in respect of the
virtual assets. CEAC will normally accept responsibilities for such Wills
only of they have been archived with CEAC.
CEAC will adopt procedures similar to what
Indian Banks use for settlement of claims before giving effect to the Will for
Virtual Assets.
The service will be charged to cover the
necessary expenses involved in providing such a service.
The essential part of this service is that
CEAC would act as a "Custodian of Information" and hence CEAC would not accept
any legal liability to any of the legal heirs by virtue of being such a
custodian.
In the event of any other dispute to which
CEAC is made a part of CEAC would be acting on the instructions of a
competent Court.
CEAC would be discharging its functions as an
"Intermediary" and a group of advocates would administer the scheme and would be
responsible for meeting all legal obligations.
Archival of Virtual Assets by a Service
Provider pending settlement of a Claim
(CEAC-VA)
CEAC-VA is
a service offered by Cyber Evidence Archival Center (CEAC) to ensure that the
virtual assets of a deceased person are transferred to the legal claimants as
per the inheritance laws of the Country.
It is proposed
that the online service providers such as domain name registrars, web hosting
companies, social networking companies etc will use the service to archive data
about customers who have build up virtual assets though their service and become
un reachable possibly due to death.
The service
envisages
a) In the
event of an account being defunct forwarding a certified notice to the
last known e-mail and physical address registered by the person while
opening the account.
b) On
receipt of any communication indicating that the account holder has
deceased, sending a request to legal heirs to submit a claim as per
procedures that CEAC would designate. (The procedure and documentation would
be similar to what is adopted in Indian Banks for settlement of claims for
the financial assets of the deceased).
c) One
receipt of the claim papers, scrutinizing it, and recommending suitable
action to the service provider to either release the data to the claimant as
per the claim
d) In the
event of an envisaged prolonged dispute, archiving the data at the request
of the service provider in confidence.
Details of the
cost of the service would be indicated on a case to case basis.