The Model Rules provide the first comprehensive European framework for dealing with digital assets and personal digital content after death. The Model Rules will soon be available on ELI website.

As people's lives increasingly extend into the digital world, individuals leave behind online accounts, cloud storage, social media profiles, digital wallets, creative works, and AI-enabled digital representations. Yet legal systems have struggled to answer fundamental questions about who may inherit, access, or manage these digital remains while respecting privacy and the wishes of the deceased.

The newly approved Model Rules offer an innovative and practical solution by recognising that not all digital content should be treated alike. Rather than forcing all digital remains into traditional succession law or data protection law, the Rules establish a dual legal framework:

• Digital assets with economic value are transferred through the ordinary law of succession.
• Personal digital remains, closely connected to the deceased's identity, privacy, and dignity, are governed by a carefully safeguarded right of access rather than inheritance.

A key innovation is the treatment of the many situations in which economic assets and personal data are intertwined. The Rules introduce a structured process that protects privacy and gives effect to the deceased's wishes before digital assets are transferred to successors.

The Model Rules also provide practical guidance on issues that increasingly arise in modern estates, including AI-generated representations of deceased persons, the responsibilities of online service providers, the protection of third-party privacy, and the handling of cross-border digital estates within the existing framework of European private international law.

By combining legal certainty with respect for autonomy, dignity, and privacy, the Model Rules fill a significant gap in European private law. They are designed to support legislators, courts, legal practitioners, service providers, and citizens in addressing one of the defining legal challenges of the digital age.

The ELI Model Rules are intended to serve as a blueprint for national legislation and to inform future European policy initiatives, contributing to a coherent and future-proof framework for the management of digital remains.

More information about the project can be found here.

ELI will be hosting a webinar introducing and exploring key aspects of the Model Rules in early October 2026, more info soon.

For press inquiries and additional information, kindly contact the ELI Secretariat (secretariat@europeanlawinstitute.eu). The project’s Co-Reporters are also available for interviews and further clarifications.