(a) A user may use an online tool to direct the custodian to disclose to a designated recipient or not disclose some or all of the user’s digital assets, including the content of electronic communications. If the online tool allows the user to modify or delete a direction at all times, a direction regarding disclosure using an online tool overrides a contrary direction by the user in a will, trust, power of attorney, or other record.

(b) If a user has not used an online tool to give direction under subdivision (a) or if a custodian has not provided an online tool, a user may allow or prohibit in a will, trust, power of attorney, or other record the disclosure to a fiduciary of some or all of the user’s digital assets, including the contents of electronic communications sent or received by the user.

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Terms Used In California Probate Code 873

  • Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
  • Custodian: means a person that carries, maintains, processes, receives, or stores a digital asset of a user. See California Probate Code 871
  • Designated recipient: means a person chosen by a user using an online tool to administer digital assets of the user. See California Probate Code 871
  • Electronic: means relating to technology having electrical, digital, magnetic, wireless, optical, electromagnetic, or similar capabilities. See California Probate Code 871
  • Online tool: means an electronic service provided by a custodian that allows the user, in an agreement distinct from the terms-of-service agreement between the custodian and user, to provide directions for disclosure or nondisclosure of digital assets to a third person. See California Probate Code 871
  • Power of attorney: A written instrument which authorizes one person to act as another's agent or attorney. The power of attorney may be for a definite, specific act, or it may be general in nature. The terms of the written power of attorney may specify when it will expire. If not, the power of attorney usually expires when the person granting it dies. Source: OCC
  • Power of attorney: means a record that grants an agent authority to act in the place of the principal. See California Probate Code 871
  • Record: means information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or that is stored in an electronic or other medium and is retrievable in a perceivable form. See California Probate Code 871
  • Terms-of-service agreement: means an agreement that controls the relationship between a user and a custodian. See California Probate Code 871
  • Trust: includes the following:

    California Probate Code 82

  • User: means a person that has an account with a custodian. See California Probate Code 871
  • Will: includes a codicil, a testamentary instrument that only appoints an executor, or an instrument that revokes or revises a testamentary instrument. See California Probate Code 871

(c) A user’s direction under subdivision (a) or (b) overrides a contrary provision in a terms-of-service agreement.

(Added by Stats. 2016, Ch. 551, Sec. 1. (AB 691) Effective January 1, 2017.)

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