Does the “Digital Legacy” Really Belong to Us? “數字遺產”真的屬于我們嗎？

Nowadays， most of our lives are recorded online. We set up email and online shopping accounts; we download music， films， games and e-books; we post and repost on WeChat and Sina Weibo.

Together， these things make up our “digital legacy”. What can we do with our legacy when our last day comes？

US tech company Apple is testing a new digital legacy service. With it， you can pass on your personal data such as photos， videos， notes and other information to your friends or family members.

如今，我們的大部分生活都被記錄在網上。我們注冊電子郵箱和線上購物賬戶，下載音樂、電影、游戲和電子書，還在微信和新浪微博上發布并轉發內容。

這些共同構成了我們的“數字遺產”。在生命的最后一天到來時，我們能用數字遺產做些什么？

美國科技公司蘋果公司正在測試一項新的數字遺產服務。通過這項服務，你可以把諸如照片、視頻、筆記和其他個人數據傳送給你的朋友或家人。

In fact， there are two types of digital legacy. One is “assets” that we buy with money， such as game equipment. As they are worth some money， they can be inherited. The other kind is things that carry sentimental value， such as social media accounts. Dealing with these is a problem.

實際上，數字遺產分為兩種類型。一種是我們花錢購買的“資產”，如游戲設備。這些資產具有一定的金錢價值，因而可以被繼承。另一種是帶有情感價值的事物，比如社交媒體賬戶。如何處理這種數字遺產成了一個問題。

Although you may have created your accounts， you don’t really own them—Internet companies do. You only have a right to use them. For example， your Taobao account might be closed by the company if you haven’t logged in for more than six months.

Also， it’s hard to balance between our digital legacy and privacy protection. “Whether social media accounts， like WeChat and Sina Weibo， can be inherited is still questionable， because they are highly personal，” said Wang Cheng， a professor at Peking University Law School.

Is it possible to get everything deleted？ The answer may be “Yes”. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation went into effect in 2018. It said people have a right to erase personal data， which is also known as “the right to be forgotten”.

你雖然可能已經創建了自己的賬戶，但并不真正擁有它們——網絡公司才擁有這些賬戶。你只擁有使用賬戶的權利。例如，如果你超過六個月沒有登錄你的淘寶賬號，那么它可能會被淘寶公司關閉。

此外，我們很難在處理數字遺產和保護隱私之間取得平衡。北京大學法學院教授王成表示：“微信和新浪微博等社交媒體賬號是否可以繼承仍是個問題，因為這些賬號內容非常私人?！?/p>

我們有可能把網上的個人信息都刪除嗎？答案或許是肯定的。歐盟《通用數據保護條例》于2018年生效。該條例規定，數據主體有要求刪除其個人數據的權利，該權利也被稱為“被遺忘權”。

Word Study

asset /'?set/ n. 資產；財產

inherit /?n'her?t/ v. 繼承（金錢、財產等）

She inherited a fortune from her father.