Minnesota passed a new law this session to deal with access to digital information if a person becomes incapacitated or dies. The new law is called the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA) and became effective August 1, 2016. The new act was prompted by the death of Jacob Anderson, a 19 year old, who died in 2015. His parents were unable to access their son’s cellphone information which they had hoped could answer some of the questions of why he was found dead along the Mississippi Rover at Long Lake. (See the Fox Channel 9 report of August 1, 2016 link HERE).
RUFADAA will allow a person to specify who gets control of his/her digital assets if they become disabled or die. This ensures that only a specified person(s) can gain access to social media such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.
This new law allows the use of an “online tool” to direct the custodian ( a person that carries, maintains, receives or stores a digital asset of the user) to disclose or not to disclose to a designated recipient, some or all or digital assets including the content of electronic communications, or the user may allow or prohibit such access in a Will, Trust, Power of Attorney, or “other record disclosure” to a fiduciary of some or all of the user’s digital assets, including the content of electronic communications sent or received by the user.
This new law appears under Minnesota Statutes Chapter 521A. Click the link HERE to read the Statute.