Digital Afterlife Governance

# Digital Afterlife Governance **Domain:** Digital Afterlife / Governance / Law **Doc Type:** Canonical Concept **Maturity:** Developed **Evidence / Concept Status:** Corpus synthesis routing established law and proposed continuity architecture ## Definition **Digital Afterlife Governance** is the legal and institutional architecture governing postmortem data, future reconstruction, identity, consent, custody, service obligations, portability, succession, and rights when a person's digital state persists beyond biological death. ## Continuity Significance It routes familiar estate and data questions into continuity-specific governance and prevents three category errors: treating data as a person, provider terms as consent, or technical custody as ownership. ## Existing Architecture / Evidence Current footholds include France's postmortem-data directives, Spain's digital testament, electronic estate planning, digital-replica law, succession registries, data-protection foresight, digital identity, and private continuity contracts. ## Evidentiary Boundary / Red-Team Note The field is mixed evidence. Enacted law must remain separate from structural analogy and proposed continuity law. ## Key Insight **Search for the functions the future requires.** ## Related Ontology [[wiki/Digital Afterlife|Digital Afterlife]] · [[wiki/Continuity Election|Continuity Election]] · [[wiki/Continuity Constitutionalism|Continuity Constitutionalism]] · [[wiki/Digital Testament|Digital Testament]] · [[wiki/Postmortem Data Directive|Postmortem Data Directive]] · [[wiki/Digital Replica|Digital Replica]] · [[wiki/Continuity Custody|Continuity Custody]] · [[wiki/Continuity Finance|Continuity Finance]] ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts  > "Mind uploading is our best hope for defeating death." > **— Kenneth Hayworth**, *Brain Preservation Foundation writings, wording candidate* *Verification Status: Unverified — exact wording/source has not yet been independently confirmed against a primary source; source clue: Brain Preservation Foundation writings, wording candidate.* [[reminders/unverified/Mind Uploading Is Our Best Hope for Defeating Death by Kenneth Hayworth|Mind Uploading Is Our Best Hope for Defeating Death by Kenneth Hayworth]] > "Once minds are software, they can be copied, backed up, and run faster or slower." > **— Anders Sandberg**, *Emulation-economics writings, wording candidate* *Verification Status: Unverified — exact wording/source has not yet been independently confirmed against a primary source; source clue: Emulation-economics writings, wording candidate.* [[reminders/unverified/Once Minds Are Software by Anders Sandberg|Once Minds Are Software by Anders Sandberg]]