Apple demands widow get court order for password

Now that, said 72-year-old Peggy Bush, was a lot more hard.

“I was just completely flummoxed”, Donna revealed. Bush didn’t know the AppleID password. It was too confusing to me… “I didn’t realize he had a specific password I should have known about … it just never crossed my mind”, she said.

Her husband, David, had succumbed to lung cancer in August 2015 and left behind properties that include the house, the auto and certain Apple devices such as an iPad and an Apple computer.

She was initially told that certifications to prove her husband’s death was enough but was later told by a customer rep that a court order would be required in order to retrieve the password, something that many have found to be incredulous given the circumstance. “It just seemed nonsense”, she told CBC. There’s really no need to get a court get involved just because a nice lady can figure out her dead husband’s.

You might think that all she’d have to do is contact Apple, provide a copy of his death certificate and will, and the password would be handed over.

But when the Bushes called Apple with the information, Apple’s customer service claimed they didn’t know who Donna was and had no record of having the previous conversation.

Peggy Bush sought the help of her daughter, Donna Bush, who didn’t have any better luck breaking the Apple firewall. “You need to be exceptionally cautious what you do with it”. All I want to do is download a card game for my mother on the iPad. Some people would not wish to have their families go through their email or messages on their many accounts. At the time of publication, it was working with Donna Bush to do that. After Go Public contacted Apple, it called Donna Bush saying there was a misunderstanding and offering help without a court order. Lawyers who deal with wills and estate planning are generally still not thinking about the digital consequences of death and so even now, no advice is given about how to manage the “digital estate” once someone dies. “It’s definitely going to become a bigger issue”, he said.

For many Apple users, this means that we can trust Apple to keep our search history, pictures, and embarrassing digital purchases safe from the curious eyes of our loved ones.

How to deal with a person’s digital assets is becoming sort of a problem, according to Gerry Beyer, the Governor Preston E. Smith Regents Professor of Law at Texas Tech University’s School of Law.