Purpose

Death is the one stage of life that, if we are lucky, we will all reach. Yet society consistently looks away from it, and the tech industry is no exception. This event opens a conversation about how technology can genuinely support the end of life process, from practical administration to emotional legacy, rather than treating death as an edge case.

Concept

Every day we add to our digital lives: photos, messages, opinions, creative work, biometric data. In doing so, we are also building a digital graveyard. Most of us have never considered what happens to that data when we die, who profits from it, or how we would feel about companies monetising the memory of a loved one, including targeting grieving families based on a death. As AI systems grow hungrier for training data, the words and work of the deceased become valuable raw material, raising urgent questions about consent that current regulation barely touches. This panel asks the audience to consider whether tech companies should carry greater responsibility for the data of the dead, and what societal shifts that would require.

Objectives

Give developers and policymakers a clear picture of the current regulatory landscape in the EU and US, and where the gaps lie for post-mortem data.

Move the conversation from the abstract to the personal. We debate the legacy and IP of famous artists, but what would you want for your own data? How would you feel if a business used a family member's data after their passing?

Explore what a "GDPR for the dead" could look like: the right to deletion on request, and consent given before death, much like organ donation. What would change for society, and for the tech companies built on our data?