Digital Wills Concept Tested in Australia
May 5, 2004
From an article by Angus Kidman, ZDNet Australia
People have been known to hide their
wills in some pretty unusual locations, but concealing
one in digital form inside a watch may take some
beating.
Australian technology lawyer and open
source advocate Jeremy Malcolm is testing the validity
of digital wills in Australia by placing his last will
and testament, complete with digital signatures from
himself and two witnesses, on a DUGI watch which
includes a 128MB USB memory key.
While government agencies have made
increasing efforts to promote digital signatures as a
valid means of transacting business, those efforts
haven't yet extended to divvying up your worldly goods
amongst the squabbling relatives. "There is no explicit
recognition of digital signatures as a way of signing
your will," Malcolm told ZDNet Australia.
So will the will be valid? "It relies
on section 34 of the Western Australian Wills Act --
other states have similar provisions -- which says: 'A
document purporting to embody the testamentary
intentions of a deceased person is a will of that
person, notwithstanding that it has not been executed in
accordance with section 8, if the Supreme Court is
satisfied that the deceased intended the document to
constitute his will'," explains Malcolm. "Basically, it
means that you can get by with a will that isn't
executed properly if you can prove that you did intend
it as your will."
Tim Hewson, CEO of PartingWishes Inc
welcomed this move and explained “it is only a matter of
time before digital signatures becomes the officially
recognized means of signing one’s last will and
testament. It is ridiculous that the only accepted
practice in law is to rely on a signature, and to hope
that the document is stored in a safe place that people
will not find while a person is alive, but find
instantly once a person dies. Digital signatures ensure
that the testator really is the person 'signing',
instead of an easily forged scribble of a name, and
equally importantly it ensures that the document can be
held securely in an electronic format until the moment
it is needed.”
PartingWishes.com and it’s subsidiaries at
LegalWills.ca and
USLegalWills.com will be ready to implement a
digital signature strategy as soon as the legislation is
officially recognized in Canada and the US.
For More Information Contact:
PartingWishes.com
Email:
support@partingwishes.com
Internet:
http://www.partingwishes.com
