White Paper – Draft v1.0
Publication Date: February 2026
Digital Estate Planning Institute (DEPI)
Notice and Disclaimer
This white paper is published by the Digital Estate Planning Institute (DEPI) for informational and standards-development purposes only.
The content of this document does not constitute legal, financial, fiduciary, or professional advice and should not be relied upon as such. Readers should consult qualified professionals regarding jurisdiction-specific legal or regulatory requirements.
This document is intended to inform discussion, research, and the development of voluntary standards related to digital estate continuity. It does not create any legal rights or obligations and does not supersede applicable laws, regulations, or contractual agreements.
Executive Overview
As digital systems increasingly mediate identity, authority, and access, the continuity of digital life has become inseparable from the governance of digital identity.
Traditional estate frameworks treat identity implicitly, assuming that authority flows naturally from legal instruments to operational control. In digital environments, identity functions as an independent control plane, governing authentication, authorization, delegation, and revocation across systems.
This shift introduces a fundamental challenge: digital identity persists across time, incapacity, and death, yet existing governance frameworks were not designed to manage identity continuity as a lifecycle concern.
This white paper examines how failures in identity governance—particularly around delegation, revocation, and succession—undermine digital estate continuity. It argues that without standards-based approaches to identity lifecycle governance, digital systems will continue to outpace legal, fiduciary, and ethical frameworks.
1. Identity as the Control Plane of Digital Life
In digital systems, identity is not merely descriptive. It is operational.
Identity determines:
- who may access systems
- what actions may be performed
- under what conditions authority is granted or revoked
Authentication and authorization mechanisms enforce identity continuously and automatically, often without reference to legal or institutional context.
As a result, identity now functions as the primary control plane of digital life—superseding ownership models, physical possession, and even formal authority in many cases.
2. The Decoupling of Identity and Legal Status
Legal frameworks recognize changes in status: capacity, incapacity, death, appointment of fiduciaries.
Digital identity systems generally do not.
An individual’s digital identity may remain fully active despite legal incapacity or death. Conversely, access may be abruptly terminated without regard to legal authority or beneficiary needs.
This decoupling creates systemic risk, as identity systems continue to operate without awareness of the human lifecycle events they now govern.
3. Delegation: The Missing Layer in Identity Governance
Delegation—the ability to grant limited, scoped authority to others—is fundamental to continuity.
In physical and legal systems, delegation is routine. In digital systems, it remains inconsistent, informal, or absent.
Where delegation exists, it is often:
- binary rather than granular
- platform-specific
- difficult to revoke or audit
- disconnected from fiduciary roles
The absence of standardized delegation models forces individuals to rely on insecure workarounds, including credential sharing, informal access, or avoidance of planning altogether.
4. Incapacity as the Primary Failure Trigger
While death is often treated as the defining event in estate planning, incapacity is more common, more complex, and more disruptive in digital contexts.
Incapacity may be:
- partial or temporary
- gradual rather than sudden
- contested or ambiguous
Digital systems rarely recognize incapacity as a state. Identity credentials continue to function until revoked, creating risks of misuse, error, or harm.
Continuity frameworks that focus exclusively on post-mortem transfer fail to address the most prevalent lifecycle disruption.
5. Succession and Revocation in Persistent Identity Systems
Digital identities are persistent by design. Revocation and succession are exceptions, not defaults.
Without structured succession mechanisms:
- identities may persist indefinitely
- access rights may remain misaligned with authority
- responsibilities may transfer informally or not at all
Revocation, when it occurs, is often absolute—terminating access without regard to continuity, preservation, or beneficiary needs.
Standards-based identity governance must address when, how, and to whom authority transfers, and under what conditions it may be revoked.
6. Cross-Platform Fragmentation of Identity
Individuals typically maintain multiple digital identities across platforms, institutions, and jurisdictions.
Each identity operates under distinct rules for:
- authentication
- delegation
- recovery
- succession
This fragmentation multiplies risk and complexity for executors, fiduciaries, and beneficiaries. It also undermines any assumption of coherent digital continuity.
Without shared standards, identity governance remains platform-bound, reactive, and opaque.
7. Ethical Implications of Persistent Digital Identity
Persistent digital identity raises ethical questions that extend beyond access and control.
These include:
- dignity and consent after incapacity or death
- preservation or deletion of identity-linked data
- post-life representation and agency
- harm caused by unmanaged persistence
Absent governance, identity persistence defaults to technical convenience rather than ethical intent.
Ethical alignment cannot be retrofitted through platform policies alone. It requires shared principles embedded in standards.
8. Identity Governance as a Lifecycle Responsibility
Digital identity governance must be treated as a lifecycle responsibility, not a terminal event.
Effective continuity requires:
- anticipatory delegation
- conditional authority
- clear succession pathways
- transparent revocation mechanisms
These elements must be designed to operate across decades, technologies, and institutional boundaries.
9. The Role of Standards in Identity Lifecycle Governance
Standards provide the abstraction necessary to govern identity across systems without constraining innovation.
Properly designed standards can:
- define lifecycle states and transitions
- support interoperable delegation models
- align identity control with legal and fiduciary authority
- enable auditability and accountability
- embed ethical considerations into technical systems
Standards do not replace identity technologies. They establish the governance layer those technologies require.
Conclusion: From Identity Persistence to Responsible Continuity
Digital identity is now inseparable from digital estate continuity.
As identity systems continue to expand in scope and power, the absence of lifecycle governance will produce increasing misalignment, harm, and ethical conflict.
Addressing these challenges requires moving beyond post-mortem frameworks toward standards that recognize identity as a persistent, governable element of human digital life.
The DEPI Digital Estate Continuity Standard builds on this analysis by defining principled, technology-agnostic requirements for identity delegation, succession, and continuity across the human lifecycle.
Status
Draft v1.0 · February 2026
DEPI — Digital Estate Planning Institute 