1Password Access after Death, Legacy Contacts
I am not planning to die anytime soon, but sometimes things happen.
Beyond securing my 1Password details in an Escrow account, or with a lawyer, or in a bank lockbox, does 1Password offer any means of allowing one or more designated member of the 1Password Families account to access the 1Password account in case of the primary owner's passing?
Apple now offers the ability to add one or more Legacy Contacts so that in case of your untimely demise, an Access Key and a Death Certificate allows Apple to grant the holder of both of these to get a new Apple ID that has access to your Apple ID Account.
It may be something 1Password wants to consider, though I realize that reviewing Death Certificates may not be on the high list of priorities for the team!
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We do not have any available options like what you're seeking. Well, short of sharing the Emergency Kit and password. I hope that will change.
For now, I've shared my Emergency Kit with my adult children, and I keep my password secured in a safe (inside a sealed envelope), which will be opened when I pass. It's a grim subject, but you are 100% correct. It is one that needs to be addressed beforehand. I recommend ensuring anyone in a family membership has a secondary organizer.
🚑 Recover accounts for family or team members
I went through this several years ago with my wife. We prepared using the above method. We thought I would be the first to go. That didn't happen. Life throws you those curveballs.
I can let the team know this subject is also on your mind.
ref: PB-37977565
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This is also an important topic for me. Thank you mentioning this subject to the team!
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Hello! Just echoing this. I have been using LastPass because of their Emergency feature, and looking to potentially change to 1Password but this will be a blocker for me.
Recently a close friend lost her husband unexpectedly and suddenly. She has had so many issues canceling subscriptions and having access to all the things he had access to. We don't want to think about these things, but I think inherently a Family account should be covering that for us. Knowing that my passwords are safe on a vault that my family can access if anything was to happen to me is really important. And the other way around!
All the current solutions I see require a million things to setup and so many chances for frustration (no access to email, not sure which 2FA is enabled, etc.). Also, printing the page doesn't seem like a great idea considering 1Password principles: that basically gives access to anyone that finds the page very easily at any point.
It's hard enough to deal with the grieve of losing a loved one, it would be great if products like 1Password prioritised making such a human and difficult moment an easier one.
I'll remain hopeful to see a feature like this come into 1Password :)
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Add me to the long list of people (judging by the number of search results in Google for this sort of thing) who are strongly in favor of some kind of time-delayed emergency/contingency access feature similar to what LastPass has. In previous discussions I have seen "security" cited as the reason 1P has not implemented such a feature, and granted there is always a tradeoff between security and convenience, but the "user story" I would like the product management team to consider is:
- I have close family/friends I would trust to manage my affairs in case I am incapacitated or dead
- In many cases I may already today be using Family product features to share secrets/creds with them
- But only to a limited subset of accounts, because I do not necessarily trust them to have the same amount of tech savvy or paranoia etc. as I do, and I don't necessarily want to give them full access to all my financial data etc.
- And when I say "them" I mean "them, or anyone who compromises their devices/accounts, or can be in a position to extort/coerce it out of them" -- this is why the time delay feature is crucial. If I am actually alive and functioning :) it gives me time to veto an unauthorized access. If I am dead or in a coma, then giving my loved ones access to my info becomes a priority and outweighs any concerns I might have about their security hygiene.
- For the above/similar reasons, sharing the Emergency Kit and actual passphrase is a non-starter
- The "recover accounts for family members" feature doesn't work either, because you can't (I believe) recover your own account, and in a scenario where I'm dead, it doesn't help if a trusted person can "recover" my account because they would need access to my email to complete the recovery.
There are always tradeoffs involved; the goal is to make the consciously and knowingly. If 1P feels this sort of feature renders the product inherently less secure, it can still implement it and make it optional, with lots of warning dialogs and disclaimers that people have to click through to enable it, but they can still make that choice for themselves.
If I'm missing something and/or there's an existing way to address the above concerns, I'm all ears!
Alternatively, I would be much happier sharing my emergency kit with people if there was a "when your Emergency Kit is used from a new location, send a notification and require either 2FA or ___ days to elapse before it can be used" option available, which accomplishes the same thing.
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@ag_tommy I fully agree with @Zorak, please pass my request along to the team as well.
This feature so important, that I am almost willing to switch to some other product. I switched to 1password from LastPass because of the problems they had, but they kind of feel minor compared to the value of the "Emergency Access" feature.
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I 100% agree that this feature needs to be developed. In 2022, I lost both my parents unexpectedly within 4 months of each other, and it was a nightmare having to deal with all of the admin involved in closing accounts, ending subscriptions, etc.
There must be a way to implement such a feature without needing to print out a piece of paper with the relevant details on it. Say someone breaks into my house and manages to get into my safe—they then have access to my entire life. It seems silly of a company such as 1Password that values security so much just to say, 'Print it out and put it in a safe place'!
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To add to my comment above - I just realised that there is no point printing out my emergency kit as I have 2FA on my account... So printing it out and my family using it after I pass away will be of no help as they will need the 2FA code...
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Thank you both. I've shared your comments with the team.
ref: PB-38664805
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Do you understand that what you are suggesting completely makes the whole point of storing passwords in 1Password a complete waste. What happens if someone manages to find that piece of paper who shouldn’t have access to it?
I might as well just have a notebook with all my passwords in it.
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Some of our users provide 1/2 of the password to another family member and another half to another family member.
The use of the Emergency Kit is the only available option. Feel free to look around the community. You'll see varied suggestions from many folks here in the community. As with any important or legal document, you must take appropriate safeguards to ensure its safety. I lock mine behind a safe door, and only I know the combination, too. In the event of my demise, my heirs will need to access it. Outside of that, I also have it stored in a bank safety deposit box for disaster preparedness.
It should never be left out in the open for anyone to find.
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I believe that Bitwarden has found a good solution here and wanted to make this suggestion available for discussion in the development team.
Bitwarden allows you to define so-called "trusted emergency contacts" via Emergency Access.
They can then request access via their Bitwarden account in an emergency. The trusted emergency contact can then access the grantor's vault after a predefined period of time has elapsed.
During this period, however, the grantor can also cancel this access request (if the request is not permitted and the grantor is still alive, for example).
More information: https://bitwarden.com/help/emergency-access/
I am curious to see whether we will soon see another option from 1Password. It has already been announced here and there that this topic is already being discussed internally.
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Topics like this are always open to discussion amongst the team. That does not necessarily translate to active work on any project. That said, I am but a single person in this large machine. There are many areas that my travels do not take me each day. We are aware of various methods and the team always looks at possibilities. Thank you for sharing.
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Yep, the local lock smith is a friend of the family. :)
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Just want to add my 2cents. I think this is a crucial feature. Currently I stored my emergency kit with a service that encrypts it when I don't respond two an email in X days. But I'd rather have my password manager handle this than relying on another tool (which might not be around anymore when it's needed).
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Add me to the list. I have the stand-alone paid app, not a membership. I was hoping a membership would include a legacy feature. If 1Password competitors can do it...
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Did you see one of our latest beta announcements? Does it help you? https://1password.community/discussion/145445/recovery-codes-for-individuals-beta#latest
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Add me to the list of people who’d like this.
My preferred solution would be to provide an email address that I can share with my heirs, along with instructions on what to do once I’m dead: send an email to the address with a predefined code in it.
When this happens, it should notify me that an heir is asking for access to my account, and give me a configurable time period in which to object, maybe 48 hours. If I don’t do that, they get access to data that allows them to access my 1password account.
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Does my posting above yours on account recovery help? Here's the link again.
https://1password.community/discussion/145445/recovery-codes-for-individuals-beta#latest
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@ag_tommy Unfortunately, it doesn’t. The crux is this sentence: “ Once created, make sure to store the code in a safe and accessible place outside of this account”
Where should I store it? I don’t have a safe deposit box, and I tend to use 1Password to store my confidential stuff. A mechanism to release it to the right people after I’m gone is the part that’s missing for me.
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Gotcha. I'll get that portion before the team. Thanks for clarification.
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