Updated at 17.34: Comment from Facebook added.
the Private messages, images and the option to write a status on a deceased person’s behalf.
It was what Michael Bay Hansen had access to, when he tried to create a profile on the Facebook positioning Messenger to his son, Victor, with a new phone number. The number had previously belonged to a woman, who since has died.
When Michael Bay Hansen created the account, he was asked if he would log on to the deceased woman’s profile. It he answered ‘no’ to, but was nonetheless allowed to create an account with the number, and the boy had written to members of his family.
– When we first created it, seemed quite normal, and we got written to some. We could see the messages from him, but we could not answer.
– So, we tried to log in from a new device, and so we landed directly on her Messenger. We could see all of her messages and her Facebook. She has also suddenly been ‘online’ with all his friends after three years, says Michael Bay-Hansen.
He had got access to everything on the deceased Danish woman’s profile.
the Article continues under the picture …
Michael Bay Hansen was immediately aware that he had gained access to a wrong account, and he hastened, therefore, to find out how it could be done. But there was no help to download with Facebook.
– I’m tired of it. You can’t contact Facebook. I have tried everything, he says.
– you Can report her as deceased?
– No, I can’t. I can report her for spam, fake profile or similar. But I can’t contact Facebook about the problem.
– I have been inside on the deceased’s profile and prompted for deletion. There goes 30 days, before the profile disappears completely, he says.
It is particularly the lack of contact to the Facebook, which Michael Bay Hansen finds problematic.
– It is so closed. And so you stand here with access to a profile, because she has owned a number of three years ago. I have full access to it, I could make a status update, if it were, I would.
– I did not know what we should do, so I went in and found her daughter on Facebook. Her I have written a long message to, I could well put myself in the situation. It is here, after all, is deeply uncomfortable. Unfortunately, I have not got any reply from her.
How to report a profile of ‘death’
If one of your loved ones goes away, then you can report it to Facebook.
It is a longer process, where you must prove your relationship to the deceased, while you also must prove that the person is dead. It can, for example, you do by submitting a death certificate. Read more here.
Then you can decide what you want to do with the profile.
You have the following two options:
Remind-profile:
You can report the person as deceased for Facebook, and then you can get the profile into a ‘memorial profile’. In this way, the profile to be active, but it is clear that the person is deceased.
It is thus still possible for the relatives to share memories with the person on his or her profile, but there can no longer be written notices or similar from the profile.
Drop profile:
When you report the person deceased to Facebook, so you can also ask them to close the account completely.
On the way, the profile cease to exist in the same way that when you delete your Facebook account.
Show more Close
Facebook has long had a problem with lack of transparency, says Filip Wallberg. He is a journalism lecturer at the University of Southern denmark and an expert in digital and social media.
– It is a major problem, that the father here – which probably has the best of intentions – can’t get in contact with Facebook. It is a major problem that Facebook, for the vast majority is a closed business.
– It can be difficult to get in contact with Facebook, when you really have something you need help or be able to tell the company. It is a problem when Facebook takes up as much space as they do in our digital lives.
With regard to this concrete case considers Filip Wallberg not that one can blame Facebook for that woman who is reported deceased. But he believes that it is a sign of a weak security system.
– It also shows something about the weakness that is in our it security, when it comes to phone numbers. It is not your. It is not a number that you take with you into the grave. It will be passed on.
– It could also be happened to a person who is alive. If now we say, that I terminate my phone plan, and then you get my number. So you can get access to my profile and read with you while I am still alive, and I discover it is not. It is indeed a problem, he says.
In a reply from the Facebook sounds, to most problems that users experience can be solved with the platform’s tools.
‘We know it can be situations, where it would be frustrating not to be able to call someone, but with 2.2 billion daily users, we have not yet found any good solution in practice’, writes a Facebook-spokesperson in an email to Ekstra Bladet.
