IEEE Spectrum – These companies could use your data to bring you back—without your consent…As humans, we all have to confront our own mortality. The datafication of our lives means that we now must confront the fact that data about us will very likely outlive our physical selves. The discussion about the digital afterlife thus raises several important, interrelated questions. First, should we be entitled to define our posthumous digital lives? The decision not to persist in a digital afterlife should be our choice. Yet could the decision to opt out really be enforced, given how “sticky” and distributed data are? Is deletion, for which some have advocated, even possible? Data are essentially forever; we are most certainly not. Digital estate planning: A checklist