Facebook allows users to decide what happens to their account after they die

Facebook allows users to nominate a legacy contact who may have limited access to the account

With Facebook being a constant part of our daily life and most of our personal memories being shared on the social networking site, it's important to know what happens to the Facebook data when one passes away.

Back in 2015, Facebook introduced legacy features – allowing a nominated person to either shut down or “memorialise” the account, once Facebook has been officially notified of the owner's death.

After the account is memorialised, it becomes “frozen” and only visible to the people in the owner's friend list. Nothing could have been posted or deleted from the page.





However, all this changed last year when Facebook allows users to nominate a legacy contact who, again after official notification of the owner's death, may have limited access to the account.



They can pin a memorial message to the front page of the account, or grant funeral details along with downloading certain personal data such as photos, friend lists and videos.

This article originally appeared on Forbes.