Digital Identity Legacy Legislation Wave Sweeps the Globe: When Your AI Avatar and Virtual Assets Become Legal Questions

When a person dies, what happens to their AI digital avatar? Who owns the personal AI assistant they trained over many years? How are their digital assets in the virtual world—from cryptocurrency to NFTs to game items—inherited?

These questions have gradually evolved from philosophical discussions into real legal dilemmas over the past few years. In June 2028, Japan's National Diet passed the Digital Identity Legacy Treatment Act, becoming the world's first law to systematically regulate digital legacy inheritance. South Korea and Estonia followed with similar legislation in early July.

Japan's law stipulates that personal AI digital avatars fall under "digital personality rights," with inheritors having the right to decide whether to continue operating, modify, or delete the AI avatar. Social media accounts can be maintained by inheritors, converted to memorial accounts, or deleted. Cryptocurrency and virtual assets follow traditional inheritance rules but require a dedicated digital legacy certification process.

A widely discussed case occurred in South Korea: after a tech entrepreneur's death, his family wanted to continue operating his AI digital avatar to manage his company. But the avatar made decisions contrary to the family's wishes, sparking a legal debate about whether AI avatars have independent will. Seoul High Court ultimately ruled that decision-making authority over AI digital avatars belongs to inheritors—the avatar itself does not have legal personality.

China's Civil Code currently has no specific provisions for digital legacy. Professor Yang Lixin of Renmin University Law School published an article on July 3 urging China to initiate digital legacy legislation promptly: "China has over 1 billion internet users, every one of whom has a digital legacy issue. Legislation can't wait until a major problem emerges."

Globally, the biggest challenge facing digital legacy legislation is the lack of technical standards. Different platforms' AI avatars, virtual assets, and digital identities lack unified data formats and interface standards, leaving inheritors facing "data silos" when processing digital legacies.

UNCITRAL announced on July 4 that it is launching a research project on an international legal framework for digital legacy, with legislative guidelines expected by end of 2029.