(Engelsk artikkel)
Adstate together with the Dutch funeral director Art of Goodbye organized the first Digital Funeral Professionals event in CIRCL in the financial district ‘Zuidas’ in Amsterdam on 29 January. A fully booked room with funeral directors, government, media and other stakeholders.
Key Question
The world we live in is in the middle of the 4th Industrial Revolution: one that revolves around data. No matter how well we think we have arranged privacy through, for example, the AVG and GDPR, that legal protection also ceases after death. «How funeral professionals can organize a substantive, qualitative and safe service package» was the key question of this event.
Why Digital Funeral Professionals
Adstate supports innovation in the funeral industry. As the Scandinavian market leader for digital services for funeral directors in various countries including the Netherlands, Adstate has a good picture of both market demand and current tools that funeral directors can acquire. The joint founding of the Digital Funeral Professionals aims to stimulate innovation for funeral directors and to support market developments.
Watch the video (youtube) and photos of the event
Follow the developments of Digital funeral Professionals on LinkedIn!
Speakers
As a Member of the House of Representatives, Jan Middendorp VVD spokesman for the Government Administration and Digitization and (E) identity. He is committed to our rapidly digitizing society; he was the first to submit an initiative paper to give every Dutch person an online identity. Here you can read about Jan’s ambitious plans.
Jeroen Terstegge is a Privacy Strategist and Partner at Privacy Management Partners. He is also chairman of the Privacy Commission of VNO-NCW and MKB Nederland. He takes us on a ‘privacy trip around the world’ to highlight the advantages and disadvantages of those countries where privacy after death is now regulated by law.
With his known annual edition ‘UitvaartBranchemonitor’, a publication of VakbladMedia, Barend van de Kraats enjoys the status of the data analyst of the Dutch funeral world. Barend is a Partner at The Alignment House, strategic management consultants, driven by the facts foundation and working within the business services, healthcare and cultural sectors.
In the UK, James Norris is a household name in the field of digital legacy, because since the founding of the Digital Legacy Association he has been able to connect hospices, lawyers, notaries and funeral services in the development of research, training, public campaigns, think tanks , information material, strategic content and best practices for the target groups involved.
Adstate talks about the impact of digital services, its collaboration with funeral directors who dare to set ambitious digital goals and the cultural change that occur. Held by Ylva Maria Mignot, co-initiator of Digital Funeral Professionals and Adstate’s business developer Netherlands and Jan Bredo Pettersen, Product Marketing Manager.
The insights of the day
- What does our digital life actually look like? @Jan Bredo Pettersen demonstrates with his e-footstep how extensive the digital legacy of a millennial is (born 1980) – spoiler alert: 40K A4 pages!!
If the legal protection ceases after death, then we do not have the freedom to lawfully transfer your dear data to surviving relatives. This means that digital and precious data cannot be included in a physical farewell in a period of mourning and loss. - There is a market demand! To secure and transfer your valuable data while alive and without guidance, strategy, safe tool or legal safety net is a crime. Let alone when relatives feel compelled to do so.
- People know what they want! How many of the 40,000 A4 e-footsteps of a millenial do you want your relatives to see later when they visit you on the internet? Digital Funeral Professionals, together with The Alignment House, led by Barend van de Kraats, investigated this and published a report in Dutch with surprising results.
- In addition, Digital Funeral Professionals conducted a consumer market survey in December 2019 at the Funeral museum Tot Zover. Adstate and Art of Goodbye have interviewed a panel of 9 ordinary Dutch people, between the ages of 14 and 72, about their funeral wishes. They speak out about their experience with organizing a funeral and how they want to be reminded digitally themselves. A mini-documentary of this conversation was shown as the first at the event.
Watch the research mini-documentary
Valuable data
The appearance of valuable data of a deceased on internet can cause suffering to relatives. Or when relatives are thwarted in their attempts to secure precious data, which they cannot access according to the Terms and Conditions of tech giants. Another problem is the completely unregulated Digital Afterlife Industry (DAI) in which many hundreds of parties’ cash in the data of deceased persons. Finally, the ethical consequences of identity fraud with personal data of the deceased are a risk that creates a great deal of unrest in the bereaved. Adstate wants to work with Art of Goodbye to provide safety for the consumer and as a partner to support funeral directors in these developments.
Follow the developments of Digital Funeral Professionals
Digital Funeral Professionals are already working on the following steps that are needed to put #DigitaleNalatenschap on the agenda of entrepreneurs and the legislator. Do you want to stay informed of developments and future events? Register on our LinkedIn page. The DigitalFuneralProfessionals.com website also goes live.