New Facebook feature plans ahead for users' deaths

Good news! Sort of… Facebook has rolled out a new feature in the US – legacy contact – which gives users control over what happens to their accounts when they die. The security feature passes over control to a specific friend, who are able to pin posts to the top of a page, respond to incoming friend requests and control the profile and header image on an account. Additionally, they can download an archive of the user’s photos and other posts.

In Facebook’s security settings, users can now select a specific Facebook friend who will be able to control certain aspects of your page, like your profile and header image, after you die. Alternatively, users can opt to have their account deleted after they pass away.

With the legacy contact feature, Facebook is taking the memorialization process (a system already in place which disables an account after somebody has passed away) a step further. The goal, according to Facebook product manager Vanessa Callison-Burch, is to make the online presence of loved ones easier to access for loved ones:

“Family members will tell us ‘I really want to communicate information about the memorial service with this person’s friends.’ The idea of a pinned post comes from there…People typically don’t think about this very much until they have an experience of loss.”