Last week I came across a news story that really tugged at my heartstrings, so much so that I’ve decided to make it my inspiration for this newsletter. Apologies for the sad nature of the story, but I really do think it’s worth knowing about…
The story, which you can read here in full if you like, is about a man who very sadly lost his wife recently, and wanted to access the photos stored on her iPhone to make a slideshow for her funeral (and no doubt to keep hold of many cherished memories). However, because he didn’t know the passcode to unlock her phone, he couldn’t get to them.
And unfortunately, because of the rules around data privacy, Apple wasn’t able to give him the passcode, and if they changed it for him, the contents of the phone would have been wiped altogether. It’s terribly sad, and I thought I’d give you some advice (that you might not have expected from me) for how to potentially avoid this in the future.
It feels bizarre to say this, considering how often we’re advised against sharing our passwords with anyone, but this is one of the few times where I’d say it’s a good idea to tell a trusted loved one what your password is (or where to find a record of it) for your Apple account, or Google account, or the code to unlock your phone.
A lot of people keep a written record of what their passwords are – this tends to send techies into a bit of a tailspin, but provided you keep it somewhere safe and discreet, then it’s unlikely that some rotter would get hold of it and use it to “hack” you. Some people even put a note in their will explaining where to find their book of passwords, to make things that bit easier for their executors when they pass away.
Another option to avoid losing things like your photos and other cherished memories is to keep a physical back up of them, either in a photo album or a scrapbook, or by storing a copy of them on a memory stick or an external hard drive. Most smartphone photo apps are set up to also store a digital copy in the cloud, but of course, you need to know the password to be able to login to the account and download them.
So there you have it – the one occasion where sharing your password with someone you trust could be worth doing. Maybe don’t put it on a post-it note inside your phone case though…