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What will your digital footprint tell people about you when you die?

From exposing sexual secrets to repairing a bad image, the digital afterlife and who controls it matters in unexpected ways, as a fascinating new book explains

By Simon Ings

19 June 2019

face on screen

Survivors usually end up managing the profiles of the dead themselves

Plainpicture/Harry + Lidy

MOVING first-hand interviews and unnervingly honest recollections weave through psychologist Elaine Kasket’s first mainstream book, All the Ghosts in the Machine, an anatomy of mourning in the digital age. Unravelling that architecture involves two distinct but complementary projects.

The first offers some support and practical guidance for people (and especially family members) who are blindsided by the practical and legal absurdities generated when people die in the flesh, while leaving…

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