Our online activity leaves behind a digital legacy. CHINA DAILY
Nowadays, most of our lives are recorded online. We set up email and online shopping accounts; we download music, films, games and e-books; we post and repost on Sina Weibo and WeChat.
如今，我们大部分生活都被记录在网上。我们注册电子邮箱和线上购物账户，下载音乐、电影、游戏和电子书，还在新浪微博和微信上发布并转发内容。
Together, these things make up our “digital legacy”. What can we do with our legacy when our last day comes?
这些共同构成了我们的“数字遗产”。在生命的最后一天到来时，我们能用数字遗产做些什么?
US tech company Apple is testing a new digital legacy service. With it, you can pass on your personal data such as photos, videos, notes and other information to your friends or family members.
美国科技公司苹果正在测试一项新的数字遗产服务。通过这项服务，你可以把诸如照片、视频、笔记和其他信息等个人数据传送给你的朋友或家人。
In fact, there are two types of digital legacy. One is “assets” that we buy with money, such as virtual coins and game equipment. As they are worth some money, they can be inherited. The other kind is things that carry sentimental value, such as social media accounts. Dealing with these is a problem.
实际上，数字遗产分为两种类型。一种是我们花钱购买的“资产”，如虚拟货币和游戏设备。这些资产具有一定金钱价值，因而可以被继承。另一种是带有情感价值的事物，比如社交媒体账户。如何处理这种数字遗产成了一个问题。
Although you may have created your accounts, you don’t really own them – internet companies do. You only have a right to use them. For example, your Taobao account might be closed by the company if you haven’t logged in for more than six months.
你虽然可能已经创建了自己的账户，但并不真正拥有它们——网络公司才拥有这些账户。你只拥有使用账户的权利。例如，如果你超过六个月没有登录，你的淘宝账号就可能会被公司关闭。
Also, it’s hard to balance between our digital legacy and privacy protection. “Whether social media accounts, like WeChat and Sina Weibo, can be inherited is still questionable, because they are highly personal,” said Wang Cheng, a professor at Peking University Law School.
此外，我们很难在处理数字遗产和保护隐私之间取得平衡。北京大学法学院教授王成表示:“微信和新浪微博等社交媒体账号是否可以继承仍是个问题，因为这些账号非常私人。”
Is it possible to get everything deleted? The answer may be “Yes”. The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation went into effect in 2018. It said people have a right to erase personal data, which is also known as “the right to be forgotten”.
我们有可能把所有东西都删除吗？答案或许是肯定的。欧盟《通用数据保护条例》于2018年生效。该条例规定，数据主体有要求删除其个人数据的权利，该权利也被称为“被遗忘权”。
