With the rise of social media presence and a shift towards the
use of digital platforms, it is important to consider your digital
assets when estate planning.
Examples of digital assets include digital money such as
cryptocurrency; social media accounts; photographs, images, files
or data stored on your mobile phone, computer or cloud service;
music bought on your iTunes account; online shopping accounts;
email accounts used to access various online banking platforms and
utility accounts; money held in mobile phone accounts such as
M-PESA and so on.
Although the presence of digital assets is almost guaranteed in
our lives, there is a gap in the succession laws of Kenya as there
is no definition of a "digital asset". Where a deceased
has not specified in his will who would inherit his digital assets,
they would generally form part of the deceased's residuary
estate and vest in the residuary beneficiary. On intestacy, the
digital assets would generally vest in the
