Digital Inheritance and Business Law: The New Invisible Wealth

Wealth that no longer fits in a safe

The technological transformation of recent decades has radically expanded the notion of wealth in both business and family contexts. If tangible assets – real estate, vehicles, and financial investments – once dominated estate planning, today digital assets are emerging, ranging from cryptocurrencies and tokens to e-commerce accounts, social media profiles, and copyrights over digital content.

So-called digital inheritance (herança digital) is already a reality that challenges both companies and families. In the corporate environment, brands and managers must deal with the fate of data, business profiles, online stores, and repositories of strategic information after the death of their administrators. The absence of specific regulation, however, creates legal uncertainty, conflicts among heirs, and operational difficulties in ensuring business continuity.

This article analyzes the legal landscape of digital inheritance in Brazil, focusing on its business implications, in light of recent case law, pending legislative bills, and best practices in digital succession governance.

Law in Transformation: from classic inheritance to digital inheritance

Traditional inheritance law, designed for material assets, now faces limits when confronted with the new digital economy. The 1988 Federal Constitution, in Article 5, item XXX, recognizes the right to inheritance as a fundamental right, but the text did not contemplate – nor could it have foreseen – the existence of digital assets.

This regulatory gap became evident as personal data, social media content, virtual currencies, and digital domains came to make up a significant part of the wealth of individuals and companies. These assets are classified into three main categories: digital estate assets (with economic value, such as cryptocurrencies, e-commerce, and NFTs), digital existential assets (of sentimental value, such as photos and messages), and hybrid assets, which combine economic and personal elements, such as monetized channels and influencer profiles.

This plurality of assets calls for a new legal perspective on estate succession, one in which the protection of privacy and the continuity of digital economic activities must coexist.

The concentrated power of Big Tech and its impact on digital succession

Major technology platforms (Google, Meta, Amazon, TikTok, among others) concentrate immense volumes of data and impose terms of use that are far from transparent. In the succession context, this creates obstacles for estate administrators (inventariantes) and heirs seeking to access the accounts and assets of deceased individuals.

The documentary The Social Dilemma illustrates this scenario well: our data has become the most valuable product of the 21st century. Big Tech companies monetize personal information through advertising algorithms, and once the data owner passes away, heirs are left facing an intangible but economically relevant estate.

Article 422 of the Brazilian Civil Code enshrines the principle of objective good faith, which requires transparency and loyalty in contractual relationships. Applied to digital contracts, it imposes on platforms the duty to provide reasonable mechanisms for the transfer, preservation, or deletion of accounts and content after the account holder's death. In practice, however, this obligation is frequently ignored, creating fertile ground for complex litigation.

The STJ precedent: digital probate as a new paradigm

Brazilian case law has begun to fill this regulatory vacuum. The Superior Court of Justice (STJ), in a landmark decision, recognized the legitimacy of the digital estate administrator to access the deceased's accounts and data, provided that the limits of privacy and intimacy are respected.

The court established a distinguishing criterion: only files and accounts with economic value or estate relevance should be part of the probate estate (espólio), while intimate messages and personal communications remain inviolable, unless expressly authorized in a will or by a reasoned court decision.

This precedent signals an evolution in the understanding of inheritance law in the digital age. It also provides legal certainty to family businesses that depend on digital assets to operate – such as online stores, marketplace platforms, and corporate digital advertising accounts.

Legislative landscape: progress and challenges in Congress

The lack of specific regulation has led to the introduction of several bills on digital inheritance in the Brazilian National Congress. Among the most relevant are:

Bill 4,099/2012, which proposes expressly including digital accounts in the Civil Code;

Bill 6,468/2019, which regulates the transfer of personal data and accounts after death;

Bill 5,820/2019, which allows for the creation of a video digital will; and

Bill 1,144/2021, which addresses the deletion of deceased users' profiles and the preservation of digital memory.

These proposals face a central ethical and legal dilemma: how to balance the right to privacy with the right to estate succession? Companies, families, and the State itself are seeking a balance between freedom of will, data protection, and the preservation of digital wealth.

The Draft of the New Civil Code (2024) brings important innovations: it includes digital assets of economic value as automatically part of the inheritance (Art. 1,791-A) and protects private messages against improper access (Art. 1,791-B). This is a significant step forward, but still insufficient without complementary policies on digital education and preventive succession planning.

Impact on the business environment: succession, governance, and continuity

Digital inheritance is not merely a family matter. It has become a corporate governance challenge. Companies, especially those operating in e-commerce and digital marketing, accumulate data, profiles, and online contracts that are often tied to the individual identity of their founders or administrators.

In the event of death, access to these assets can determine whether the business survives or collapses. Corporate social media profiles, advertising accounts, e-commerce platforms, and cloud repositories may become inaccessible in the absence of digital succession planning.

For this reason, experts recommend practices such as:

Preventive digital inventory, documenting passwords, access credentials, and relevant accounts in a secure environment;

Specific clauses in wills and corporate agreements, establishing the fate of digital assets;

Internal data governance policies, defining who may access, transfer, or delete accounts in the event of the account holder's death or incapacity.

Adopting these measures not only prevents family and business litigation, but also ensures the operational and reputational continuity of companies in the digital environment.

E-commerce and the new wealth of digital businesses

According to data from ABComm (the Brazilian E-commerce Association), e-commerce in Brazil is growing steadily and already generates billions of reais annually. In cities such as Franca (São Paulo state), the sector surpasses R$ 600 million per year, driving production chains and generating jobs.

This expansion creates a new type of business wealth: online stores, marketplace accounts, and sales profiles. Such assets carry both economic and symbolic value, and their destination after the death of business partners must be provided for in appropriate legal instruments.

Corporate digital succession planning is, therefore, a management necessity – not merely a legal formality. It ensures the continuity of revenue streams, protects brand reputation, and preserves the trust of customers and partners.

The future of succession is digital and preventive

Brazilian inheritance law is undergoing a period of profound transformation. Digital inheritance shifts the traditional axis of succession toward a territory where data, passwords, profiles, and cryptocurrencies carry the same weight as real estate and financial investments.

For companies and managers, the message is clear: succession planning must include the inventory and allocation of digital assets, under penalty of financial loss and the disruption of essential activities.

More than simply keeping pace with technology, the law must ensure security and predictability. In this scenario, preventive legal counsel becomes indispensable in guiding family businesses, startups, and organizations of all sizes in creating digital succession policies that are ethical, secure, and compliant with current legislation.

The future of digital inheritance is, above all, a commitment to continuity, privacy, and human dignity in the information age.