Apple's Legacy Contact Feature to Let Family Access Your Photos and Data After You Die
- News
- 11 Dec, 2021
Apple in iOS 15.2 is making it easier for your loved ones to access your personal data in the event of your death with the addition of a Legacy Contact feature. A person set as your Legacy Contact gets a special code that can be provided to Apple alongside a death certificate to unlock your device.
The Legacy Contact that you set will have access to your Messages, photos, notes, and other sensitive data, plus the ability to remove Activation Lock from your devices, so it is an opt-in feature and should be reserved for your most trusted contact. This how to walks you through how to enable Legacy Contacts, covers how to get to the data after a death, and outlines some of the data that will be accessible.
iOS 15.2 is available in a beta capacity at the current time, but it will launch to the public later this fall.
How to Add a Legacy Contact
Adding a Legacy Contact takes just a few steps, but both people involved in the process need to be running iOS 15.2 or later.
- Open the Settings app.
- Tap on your profile picture to get to your Apple ID settings.
- Tap on Password &Security.
- Tap on Legacy Contact.
- Tap on Add Legacy Contact.
- At the pop up screen that describes the feature, tap on Add Legacy Contact.
- Authenticate with Face ID, Apple ID, or a password.
- Apple will suggest members of your family if you have Family Sharing enabled. Tap on a family member's name or select "Choose Someone Else" to pick from your contacts list.
- Once a person has been selected, tap Next
- At the screen that describes how Legacy Contact works, tap Continue.
- Choose how to share your Access Key. You can send an iMessage to a contact with your key, or you can print a copy of it.