Do you have your phone pin number recorded anywhere?

Mine and Mrs FD is the same pin

Apple do a passcode that can be used by a next of kin to access your account on presentation of a death certificate. You can nominate the person and they get sent the code but it won’t work without the certificate..

Interesting skipper, wonder if you can do the similar for android. 

My missis had an apple phone, tbh, if the problem was the other way round, I'd just ask the daughter to unlock it, she's bound to know!

My phone has a PIN?

My children know my PIN. Or at least I've told them, and the mnemonic, enough times.

Apple do a passcode that can be used by a next of kin to access your account on presentation of a death certificate. You can nominate the person and they get sent the code but it won’t work without the certificate..

Details of phone passwords are in the shared vault in the password manager. I can access her phone and she can access mine with the passwords within. I have my iCloud access saved in there too. Herself has to set her iCloud access up and then we're good to go.

Nope. No need for it as everything they’d need access to they would legally have on my death. 

But what about all the stuff they don’t need, but might like? There's a lot of life sorted or accesses through your phone. 

Isn't everyone's 1234?

Mine and Mrs FD is the same pin

But, this. Mrs Kayak23 though, not Mrs FD.

everything they’d need access to they would legally have on my death. 

Bit morbid subject but ... how do they know what accounts you have/one has in order to access? Do you/folk have a will where this stuff is listed? When Covid began I made a file with account details for my various accounts, location of toilet paper stockpile etc.

What’s wrong with date of birth?

But what about all the stuff they don’t need, but might like? There’s a lot of life sorted or accesses through your phone. 

Such as?

Such as?

Pictures, (as mentioned in the original post) social media, WhatsApp, emails, I've got a Freeshare account that admittedly is worth a fraction of what I put into it but... Even things like my phone book might be useful for arranging the wake.

Bit morbid subject but … how do they know what accounts you have/one has in order to access?

Pretty much everything has an app these days, it's all on my phone!

I just wear one of these in case of emergency

Pictures, (as mentioned in the original post) social media

As mentioned by others they can get access to those.

WhatsApp is no use to anyone but me, emails again can be accessed with permission, Social media is of no use to anyone either. 

Just get them to hold the phone up to your dead face?

My phone doesn’t have a pin on it, the only app anyone can access and do damage is the banking app which has 2 step security anyway.

A full list of bank accounts, savings accounts, pensions, insurance, utilities, work contacts etc and all tne passwords etc is in a nondescript notebook on a shelf of similar in the spare room. MrsMC and the eldest child know which it is, what is in there, and why I've told them.

MrsMC has never bothered with my suggestion she should do similar because she is a stubborn ass on the subject, despite having just gone through all this having recently lost both parents.

MrsMC has never bothered with my suggestion she should do similar

I avoided that by not letting Mrs S have access to any of those things for herself .

MrsMC has never bothered with my suggestion she should do similar because she is a stubborn ass on the subject, despite having just gone through all this having recently lost both parents.

Are we actually married to the same woman?  MrsJ owns property in another country whose language I do not speak and whose bureaucacy I am not familiar with. When she kicks off there is no chance in hell anyone will be able to access it without an enormous struggle.

I’ve left my kids my left thumb in my will.

Wife and kids know the pin/pattern to my phone. Not sure what's on there that they'd want but hey ho. When I pop my clogs they'll have to hold my finger to the reader to get into my bank account.

no, that’s for your iCloud account (access to which could still be very useful for relatives though) – there’s no backdoor to get into an iPhone without the PIN so you’d need to have that written down somewhere (if indeed you wanted anyone rooting through everything on your phone!)

Actually I stand corrected, I misread it. I was almost certain it said would allow access to my devices. My children know the PIN anyway..

Mrs_oab and I know each others passwords and pins.

I also have a box with all our important files in such as birth certificates and insurances, and in that there's a list of important accounts.

Having seen family flooded a couple of weeks ago, I'm upgrading my file box to one that's tougher and better in a fire or flood, plus I've tidied where everything important is. My in laws had documents scattered around the house, in bottom drawers etc which were ruined in the flood, and/or hard to find them in a dark flooded house.

We know each others. We found out that we didn’t know my sisters when she passed last year, but managed to work it out. It allowed my brother in law access to contacts that she had but he didn’t  as well as photos etc

We know each others phone pins, not really sure why you'd keep it a secret from your wife/husband. But my wife somehow refuses to learn my Google account password even though I've told her it about 14,000 times.....

Just get them to hold the phone up to your dead face?

Apple has a service that instructs the undertakers to lop your face and fingers off before your coffin heads to the crematorium so your next of kin can use them access your iCloud account. The ofcuts are then presented in a very stylish shiny white cardboard box.

So, my old Pixel uses a fingerprint… and so do the banking apps on it that they would need access to. So I’ll suggest using my cold, dead hand. Guess it depends where I pop me clogs as to whether it’ll be practical!

I don't use any authentication for my phone.

Swipe, unlocked

Even if you have LPAs in force and invoked an attorney/executor cannot access a sole-name bank account after you've passed. It becomes part of the estate for assessment by HMRC

There won't be much of value on my phone, apart from STW naturally 🙂

I use iPhone/Mac/iCloud so I don't think there is anything on my phone that couldn't be accessed through iCloud.

Though, thinks, some accounts use 2FA so access to my phone is needed for those. Hmm.

I can't imagine anything worse.

I have no secrets from my partner. But would you really want to give a grieving widow access to every intimate conversation you ever had with previous partners from decades ago? Those times where you had heart-to-hearts with your bestest friends? Those chats where they confided their problems or darkest secrets to you? That one time where mutual friend Mike rolled in pissed from the pub and texted you to say that he'd always thought you could do better? Aside from anything else it's a catastrophically gross betrayal of everyone else's trust and privacy.

There is no reason to do this which isn't better served with different solutions.

Are we actually married to the same woman? MrsJ owns property in another country whose language I do not speak

I mean, I quite often feel MrsMC speaks a completely different language to me, so it's possible....

Isn’t everyone’s 1234?<br /><br />

Mine’s six digits that I can tap out quickly, when Face ID request it. I’ve thought of using an alphanumeric passcode, but that gets a bit complicated. I might go up to an 8 or 10 numeric code.
Why? Because I have my bank and building society accounts with online banking on my phone. Nobody else knows the numbers, because I have nobody else close to me except my brother.

I might go up to an 8 or 10 numeric code

I wouldn't bother, assuming your phone has built-in functionality that too many wrong guesses trigger temporary lockouts (and even if not the standard phone interface isn't conducive to brute forcing even a 6 digit password). If someone's managing to bypass that and has hooked it up to a computer that can brute force it then the difference in time to crack a 6 digit vs 10 digit (both numeric only) is negligible, they're both essentially instant (assuming there's not a big bottleneck on how quickly the phone can process authentication requests).

But would you really want to give a grieving widow access to every intimate conversation you ever had with previous partners from decades ago? Those times where you had heart-to-hearts with your bestest friends? Those chats where they confided their problems or darkest secrets to you? That one time where mutual friend Mike rolled in pissed from the pub and texted you to say that he’d always thought you could do better? Aside from anything else it’s a catastrophically gross betrayal of everyone else’s trust and privacy.

they're WAY deeper than i ever have had with anyone... I didn't know blokes had these sort of conversations.
You have conversations from your ex's ?

I'd just be worried that Mrs S gets to see how much time and shit I post on this forum!

Cougar makes a fair point, but for my relationship with my wife, I have no such worries, and of course since we already share a pin, the conversations didn't start off with an expectation of absolute privacy. We don't routinely read each other's messages but also don't keep troubling secrets from each other.

Anyone else who expects their WhatsApp to be private in perpetuity needs to reevaluate their perceptions. These things get hacked and published on a regular basis. If you need to say something off the record, don't create a record!

We have the Apple legacy contact set up (and anything of use is backed up into icloud), and we have similar in Lastpass - there's a delay/notification system but we'd be able to get in after a few days.

Irrelevant for bank accounts, etc - you don't need to be able to log in to online banking etc. In fact, you shouldn't be doing anything like that unless you've got probate and the banks have processes for this. What is a good idea is just to summarise the accounts you have to make that easier.

You have conversations from your ex’s ?

Well, I did speak with them from time to time before they became an ex, yes.

If you need to say something off the record, don’t create a record!

This, really. But increasingly this technology has always been there for people, it's not like us old farts for whom it arrived later in life. Would you want to hand over to someone a complete history of everything you said or did online when you were 25? 18? 16? 13? It's the 21st Century equivalent of a teenager keeping a diary hidden under their bed and giving mum a spare key.

Because, really, what's on your phone that someone might need access to after you die that they don't have access to now? Someone mentioned photos, that's daft for a start, it's trivial to set them to upload to a public folder in the cloud. Passwords... for what, exactly?

Just get them to hold the phone up to your dead face?

Won't work. Try it with a photo of yourself.

Dead man's fingerprints, on the other hand...
(... won't work either, you'd need to use the same hand😁)

I don’t use any authentication for my phone.

My phone doesn’t have a pin on it

. If nothing else, would you rather a thief had away with a shiny new phone or a paperweight?

Are we actually married to the same woman?

Yes, and that's why she doesn't want to give you the passwords!

Surely using the phone to access a dead persons accounts is a big no? There's a reason probate takes a little while, just skipping it would be fraud?

Most of my money's in our joint account anyway.

There is no reason to do this which isn’t better served with different solutions.

So complicated lives need complicated solutions!

I've no problem with my wife looking through all my correspondence - there's nothing juicy to see. My wife and daughter know my lock-code.

My phone doesn’t have a pin on it, the only app anyone can access and do damage is the banking app which has 2 step security anyway.

You mean that 2FA that sends a message to your phone to prove who you are and then gives access to your bank account!!? 🤦‍♂️

pin number

My teeth are itching

My mate who passed away had it all written down, which was great, apart from it was across 3 reporters note books in amongst all sorts of scribbled notes, to do lists, shopping lists, various different passwords, false dates of birth, using his cat name as an alias, game passwords and user names etc Eventually managed to get into one of his email accounts & his cats Facebook account 🤔

But would you really want to give a grieving widow access to every intimate conversation you ever had with previous partners from decades ago?

Yes, don't want them thinking when I'm dead they were anything special 😂

Yes, don’t want them thinking when I’m dead they were anything special 😂

You're telling me you never had a row with your partner and then went to the pub with a mate, let off steam and said a load of crap you didn't mean? I don't believe you.

Now imagine that, only she can read it and you're not there to explain because you're dead.

And again, it's not just about you. What if your mate had done that and your widow is his partner's bestie? What if he'd confessed an affair? Does "confidence" mean that little to you? Regardless of how clean my ticket is or isn't, I'm carrying around all manner of friends' dirty little secrets.

It's all manner of wrong, don't do it.

My teeth are itching

That would be RAS Syndrome.

My daughter knows all of my account passwords, which is odd because I never told her.

She probably knows yours too.

I’ve no problem with my wife looking through all my correspondence – there’s nothing juicy to see.

You never bought her a surprise present, or planned a surprise trip? Not all secrets have to be bad 🙂

You’re telling me you never had a row with your partner and then went to the pub with a mate, let off steam and said a load of crap you didn’t mean? I don’t believe you.

Can’t say I have, no. 

You never bought her a surprise present, or planned a surprise trip? Not all secrets have to be bad 🙂

...errr - nope!!! 🤣🤣

Stopped doing those many, many years ago now. Was our 33rd wedding anniversary last Friday.

You know what the standards in this place have gone to shit.

*Engage pedant mode*

It's PIN
Or
It's PI Number

It's never PIN Number

Unless you have a number that identifies the number that identifies you THAT would be a Personal Identification Number Number

Thank you Josh.

Although

It’s PI Number

...while correct, that's just weird.

Yeah I agree it's weird or was more illustrate the issue rather than a usable version.

Mrs and I use the same passcode (which the kids also know).

Nope. No need for it as everything they’d need access to they would legally have on my death.

you may be unusually organised, or unusually nonchalant about what happens when you are dead.  I’ve unpicked the mess of a sudden and unexpected death.  It’s not a fun process, but was a damn site easier with his phone to go through and call people.  Many of them his wife would have been able to produce contact details for but she wasn’t really in a fit state to do that.  Others, even when I produced a list of names she wasn’t sure exactly who “Dave (Manchester)” and “Mr T” were.  (Mr T was a close enough friend to fly 800 miles to go to the funeral - Dave was a taxi driver who picked him up a few weeks before he died - he didn’t make the same effort 😉 but I like to think that me calling these people saved his wife the hassle of deciding if she should call them and repeating the story for 50 times.)

I have no secrets from my partner. But would you really want to give a grieving widow access to every intimate conversation you ever had with previous partners from decades ago? Those times where you had heart-to-hearts with your bestest friends? Those chats where they confided their problems or darkest secrets to you? That one time where mutual friend Mike rolled in pissed from the pub and texted you to say that he’d always thought you could do better? Aside from anything else it’s a catastrophically gross betrayal of everyone else’s trust and privacy.

Your phone content must be way more exciting than mine.  There’s no ex partners, I’m not 15 so don’t do heart to hearts by text, and none of my friends think I could do better!

it may well not be your widow who picks through ten yrs of “where r u?” “I’m outside” “when will you be back” … she may well ask a friend or other relative to help work out which banks need contacted, how to make social media stop messages about you appearing in her phone upsetting her, how to get hold of your boss, how to get hold of the mate you had in a previous job three years ago who you car shared with for 5 years, how to get hold of the guys you go mountain biking with.   Some of that stuff you might be organised enough to write down (and perhaps keep with a will) but there will be other stuff you probably don’t.

perhaps the most useful thing was actually to be able to get into emails, but with 2FA that could be a problem without the phone or some forward thinking.   There are no doubt ways to get around these things but if they need a death certificate you could well be giving your loved ones a week or more of delay just at the wrong moment.

You never bought her a surprise present, or planned a surprise trip? Not all secrets have to be bad 🙂<br /><br />

just because my wife’s phone is sitting four feet away from me and I know the pin doesn’t mean I have any temptation to go and see what presents she is plotting for me.  Partly, because it kind of ruins the surprise which is half the point of the gift, but more importantly because the  trust we have after spending more than half our lives together means we both know we could go look at that shit but won’t.   If I have bought her a surprise round the world trip and die before I give it to her - I’d quite like her to find out and use the tickets!

You’re telling me you never had a row with your partner and then went to the pub with a mate, let off steam and said a load of crap you didn’t mean? I don’t believe you.

don’t think I have, and none of my mates have done that to me either.  

It’s never PIN Number

As we've already discussed before you waded in without reading.

Redundant Comment Syndrome comment?

I’ve unpicked the mess of a sudden and unexpected death.

I'm currently dealing with my mother's departure. Everything in on paper. Her phone is a Nokia something from 20 years ago.

Your phone content must be way more exciting than mine. There’s no ex partners, I’m not 15 so don’t do heart to hearts by text, and none of my friends think I could do better!

By SMS, no. By any other account imaginable which is accessible via your phone though... really?

she may well ask a friend or other relative to help work out

blah blah so document all those things. What's better, leaving an unlocked phone to your widow with an "off you go then love" and expecting them to do detective work, or just setting up a folder with everything they need to know?

don’t think I have, and none of my mates have done that to me either.

Well. Maybe they can't trust you because you're going to hand it all over to your partner.

As we’ve already discussed before you waded in without reading.

Redundant Comment Syndrome comment?

I did a cursory check. I my defence I was to disturbed by it to function properly.

So no we have RAS Syndrome AND RCS Syndrome

Mrs F knows my PIN; I know her's. My only real issue is she'd have access to the emails for the bike/bike related receipts in my inbox. Now, if I wasn't already dead, that might cause some consternation as I may have been economical with the accuracy of the amount admitted to, rather than economical with the actual spend. However, as I'm dead, it matters little 😂

This reminds me that I need to update my spreadsheet on my usb stick that lives somewhere in the house.

My good lady has my phone details but most of my contacts are guys Ive worked with,  a name (often miss spelt) with some notes about their appearance to jog my memory and their company name / job title.

you may be unusually organised, or unusually nonchalant about what happens when you are dead.  I’ve unpicked the mess of a sudden and unexpected death.  It’s not a fun process, but was a damn site easier with his phone to go through and call people.

Certainly not organised, no. But I have been through the process. 

I'm mildly curious as to how many wading in on this thread haven't yet bothered to write a will.