It happens. Computers left behind by a loved one become locked boxes. Accounts become frozen. Treasured digital assets are lost. Now a new service is available that helps survivors unlock digital content.

Digital Estate Services (http://www.digitalestateservices.com) is here to help. Their service can help unlock local files, recover user names and passwords for online accounts, and find important documents from a spouse or loved one’s computer in the event that they didn’t leave access.

We interviewed Jeremy Toeman, founder and CEO of Legacy Locker at Digital Death Day 2010. This is the first of several interviews with digital afterlife leaders recoded at the event. You can listen below or read the transcript.

Interview with Jeremy Toeman

Evan: So Jeremy, tell me what is the biggest take away you have from the conference?

Jeremy: So far what I found the most interesting is the span of industries that the topic of digital death covers. We have lawyers here, funeral directors here. We have obviously other people doing services like Legacy Locker, folks like yourself and people from kind of all walks of life as it pertains to notion of online identity and the death of such. So, I thought that was really great just to have so many different perspectives.

Evan: It really is great to have all these perspectives here in one room. It is starting to enlighten me on where some of the thinking is in the industry and where we might be going. Do you have any thoughts about where the digital afterlife industry is going?

Jeremy: Sure. So you and I were just in this really fascinating debate about the notion of is there such a thing as storing too much of one’s legacy. If I tell you I have thousands of pictures of my kids, as I have said a few times, is that ridiculous or is that just perfect? And I think there is almost no debate that people are going to have to make sense out it all. In other words, we are creating so much noise that someone has to come along and make some signal out of it. And I think there’s going to be business implications, personal implications and privacy implications. And I think, as I look to the future services like what we do will become more commonplace and hopefully required by law. And [there will be] different types of organizations. It will be those deciding what to do next and where it gets really fascinating.

Evan: Right, very good. Thank you for taking the time to answer a couple of questions for me and look forward to seeing you in the future.

Jeremy: Thanks a lot. I hope to see you at another such event.

I received word today that Entrustet has officially launched its new digital afterlife service. While we do not endorse any one service we’re pleased to see another strong player in this growing space. Details below from the press release.

Entrustet (www.entrustet.com) today announces its services that securely and legally enable users to delete or designate heirs for digital assets (including email, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, PayPal and more), with new features to further help users protect and pass on personal information after death. Entrustet is the first to offer a complete solution for individuals, lawyers and companies to ensure that these accounts are transferred or deleted according to customers’ wishes.

Features:

Account Guardian – The free flagship service allows users to assign an executor and multiple heirs to inherit or delete all digital assets.

• List all digital assets including photos, email, social networks accounts
• Nominate up to 10 heirs to inherit assets
• Store personal documents – one document for free, each additional is $1 per document/per year
  • As a premium add-on service, users looking to back up all files on a hard drive are referred to data backup partner Mozy.

Additional Services:

• Lawyer Directory – The Lawyer Directory serves as a referral service for Entrustet users. Entrustet has partnered with estate planning lawyers throughout the country who understand digital estate planning needs and how to incorporate digital assets into new or existing wills and trusts.
• Double verification – Before facilitating the transfer or deleting a member’s digital assets, Entrustet requires a death certificate from the Digital Executor and then verifies the information with the local records office.
• LegalZoom legal protection – When signing up for Account Guardian, members receive a printed summary of digital assets, last wishes, heirs and digital executor.  For security reasons, any usernames and passwords will not be included in the document. Members can then turn the form into a legally binding document with a do-it-yourself will through partner LegalZoom for an estimated cost of $60-$129.

Upcoming Features:

• Account Incinerator – Entrustet offers a service that will keep designated personal assets private
  • Annual fee of $19.99 per account/per year
  • Users upload account information they would like to remain private after they die. These accounts will be immediately deleted by Entrustet once a member’s death is double verified.
  • Account Incinerator will be available in Summer 2010

Corporate Partners:

Entrustet’s Corporate Partner Program provides online companies with a free, simple and effective service to monitor member deaths across their user base, as well as users’ individual last wishes for their accounts. Entrustet has also created a widget to help networks estimate the number of member death rates per year.

Entrustet is working with a number of established sites including BroadJam, a Web-based promotional tool and service site for independent musicians, the music industry and fans around the world.