Protect yourself from scams by safeguarding your digital footprint: expert

Data after death: How to handle digital footprint Emerging media consultant Mohit Rajhans speaks to CTV's Your Morning about what to do with your digital footprint once you're gone.

With more of our lives spent online, the proper planning for your digital footprint once you're dead is seeing added importance in today's world.

While it may be important to preserve those family photos and other data you've stored online, one tech expert says protecting your digital presence can also help prevent you from becoming a post-mortem victim of digital scams.

"Many people who don't necessarily follow you on a daily basis don't understand if there's been a tragedy in your life. Well, unfortunately those are the types of profiles that get sold in the dark web, so to speak, and people start to use that as a scam target," Mohit Rajhans, emerging media consultant at Thinkstart.ca, told CTV's Your Morning on Monday.

"So it's really important for people's profiles to be shut down properly so you don't become a victim in the future with some of that personal information."

Many of the world's largest social media and tech companies have processes in place to name someone who can remove or memorialize digital profiles of the deceased.

Whether it's including a clause in your will with instructions on what to do with your digital footprint, or ensuring a loved one knows how to use a password manager if you have one, Rajhans says we can't just look at our social media and think, who cares what happens to it.

"We can't just say it disappears or it just lives and lingers," he said.

Watch the full interview with Mohit Rajhans at the top of this article for more tips on how to protect your digital footprint.