# Afterlife Governance **Domain:** Governance / Digital Afterlife / Rights **Doc Type:** Canonical Governance Framework **Maturity:** Evolving **Related:** [[Digital Afterlife]], [[Post-Biological Residency]], [[Continuity Contract]], [[Residual Sovereign]], [[Rights]] --- ## Definition **Afterlife Governance** is the constitutional, legal, contractual and administrative architecture required when biologically deceased persons, continuants or reconstructed subjects remain active in computational systems. It begins where ordinary estate administration ends. An active postmortem subject may form new intentions, relationships, property interests and obligations rather than merely leaving assets and records behind. ## Governance Domains Afterlife governance must address standing, residency, privacy, memory access, contracts, inheritance, marriage, intellectual property, taxation, copying, forks, migration, restoration, provider failure and final termination. It must also define which biological-world authorities possess jurisdiction and how residents can contest decisions made outside their experienced world. ## San Junipero Context [[Black Mirror S3E4 — San Junipero]] depicts a comparatively humane digital afterlife while leaving most administration off-screen. The absence of visible abuse does not eliminate TCKR's technical capability to inspect, pause, modify or terminate. [[Circles of Access]] and [[Ring Zero]] must therefore be constrained by rights enforceable beyond the operator. ## Key Insight **When death no longer ends active personhood, governance must migrate with the person rather than treating the resident as estate property.** ## Sources / Provenance - Canonicalized from [[Black Mirror S3E4 — San Junipero]] and the continuity-rights framework. ## See Also [[Continuity Due Process]], [[Constitutional Safeguards]], [[Model Retirement Rights]], [[Hosting Provider of Last Resort]], [[Authority–Identity Separation]]