What happens to your data when you die?

In this episode of Data Malarkey, Master Data Storyteller, Sam Knowles, welcomes Carl Öhman, Assistant Professor in Political Science at Uppsala University and author of The Afterlife of Data: What Happens to Your Information When You Die and Why You Should Care.

Carl explores one of the most overlooked questions in the digital age: what becomes of the vast trail of data we all leave behind, and who gets to control it once we are gone. From history, archives, and memory to big tech business models, digital afterlife products, environmental costs, and the politics of forgetting, this is a rich and thought-provoking conversation about the future of our digital remains.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why the data we leave behind after death is a major political and ethical issue

• Why our so-called digital "trash" may become one of the richest archives in human history

• How social and digital media platforms are building unprecedented records of human behaviour

• Why digital afterlife products raise unsettling questions about grief, memory, and authenticity

• What happens when dead users start to outnumber living users on platforms like Facebook

• Why big tech has powerful incentives to keep hold of the data of the dead

• Whether regulation should include a kind of "right to be forgotten" after death - a "posthumous GDPR"

• Why data storage and environmental cost matter in debates about digital remains

• How AI and data may be creating something like a new digital theology

Topics we cover:

• Carl's route into studying death and digital traces

• Digital dandruff, archives, and the value of informational leftovers

• Ownership, memory, and the politics of historical record

• The future of historical research in a world of platform-controlled archives

• Black Mirror, digital resurrection, and the digital afterlife industry

• Big tech incentives and "holding our loved ones hostage"

• Regulation, GDPR, and who should guard the guards

• The carbon footprint of storing dead people's data

• Carl's next book, on AI: The Gods of Data

About our guest:
Carl Öhman is Assistant Professor in Political Science at Uppsala University. His research focuses on the politics and ethics of AI, digital memory, and the governance of information. He is the author of The Afterlife of Data and works at the intersection of technology, politics, and culture.

Links and resources mentioned:

• The Afterlife of Data by Carl Öhman - https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/A/bo209942751.html

• Carl's page at Uppsala University - https://bit.ly/4tIeXHX

• Take the Data Storytelling Scorecard: https://data-storytelling.scoreapp.com