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(THE CONVERSATION) What will happen to your Facebook account when you die? What about all your photos shared on social media, your texts with loved ones, or documents on cloud-storage systems? In just the two-year period from 2012 to 2014, humans produced more data than in all of human civilization before that – and the pace is only accelerating.

It’s not clear what people’s digital presences will look like in years to come, but it’s sure that an increasing number of people will be...