Content of an electronic communication

What it means

This is the other half of the split the digital-assets statutes make, and the glossary's entry on the catalog is its counterpart. The catalog is the traffic: which accounts exist, who was written to, when. The content is the substance and meaning of what was sent.

The statutory definition is narrower than it sounds and every part of it does work. It covers information about the substance or meaning of a communication that was sent or received by the user, that a provider is storing or carrying for them, and that is not readily accessible to the public. A post the person made publicly is not content in this sense; the message they sent one other person is.

Reaching it takes an express grant. A power of attorney has to say, in the document, that the agent has authority over the content of electronic communications — general authority to act is not enough, and neither is general authority over digital assets. A will can give the same permission for an executor, and the provider's own online tool overrides both.

In every state Sahvelo has read, a court-appointed guardian or conservator has no route to it at all. That is the sharpest consequence of the split: the content can only be arranged for by somebody who still has the capacity to sign.

Why it matters

It turns a paperwork question into a deadline. The express grant has to be in a document signed while the person can still sign one, so the window closes with capacity rather than with death.

It also explains a refusal that reads as obstruction and is not: a provider that sends a list of correspondents and withholds the messages is following the statute, not stonewalling.

When you are likely to meet it

• When a provider answers an executor with a list and no messages.
• When reading a power of attorney to see whether it reaches an email account.
• When a family is deciding whether a guardianship petition would solve the problem. For this, it does not.

How this varies by state

Most states have adopted a version of the same uniform act and the definition is close to identical in each. What differs is the section numbering, whether the state adopted it at all, and which court-appointed roles have any route to digital assets.

Related terms

• CapacityWhether somebody is able to understand a decision and its consequences well enough to make it. It is decided decision by decision, not once and for all.
• Catalog of electronic communicationsThe list of who was written to and when — as distinct from what the messages said.
• Custodian (of a digital asset)The company holding the account — and, under the digital-assets statutes, the party an executor or agent is actually asking.
• Digital assetAn online account or file that has value or meaning — email, photographs, cloud storage, domains, currency accounts, loyalty balances.
• Durable power of attorneyA power of attorney that keeps working after the person who signed it loses the ability to make decisions — which is usually the whole point of signing one.
• GuardianshipA court appointing somebody to make decisions for an adult who cannot make them, usually about care, housing and medical treatment.
• Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets ActThe law, adopted in most states, that gives an executor, trustee or agent a route to a person's digital accounts.

Sahvelo guidance that uses this

• Getting into a parent's accounts
• Digital legacy