Apple's Legacy Contact gains access to a user's iPhone in the event of their death.
Apple's Legacy Contact feature will be introduced with iOS 15.2, that will be releasing later this year
Apple will introduce Legacy Contact feature with iOS 15.2. The feature helps loved ones of an iOS user to gain access to the user's iPhone. The Legacy Contact will gain access to the user's messages, photos, notes, and other sensitive data. Given the criticality of the feature, it should be reserved for the most trusted contacts. Furthermore, the Legacy Contact feature also gives the contact the ability to remove Activation Lock from other devices. iOS 15.2 is currently available in beta mode and will be released for the public later this year.
The Legacy Contact feature is a part of the upcoming iOS 15.2 update. As mentioned, this feature lets the set contact access the dead iPhone user's handset along with gaining access to their personal data. Apple mentions that the person set as the Legacy Contact would be given a special access code that they need to provide Apple along with a death certificate to unlock the device. Here's how to add a Legacy Contact.
Adding a Legacy Contact is fairly simple, but a paramount requisite for this feature to work is that both — user and Legacy Contact — need to be running at least iOS 15.2.
Apple reviews all requests from Legacy Contacts before providing them with the user's data. In order to gain access to a user's data, the Legacy Contact would need to know their date of birth, death certificate, and the access key. The access key is a huge multi-digit key and is a mix of letters and numbers as well as a QR code.
Users should make sure their date of birth is accurately set in their device's settings as it is used as an authentication during the process of unlocking their iPhone after they have passed away.
Legacy Contact would need to gather the dead user's access key as well as the death certificate. They would then need to visit the Digital Legacy website to begin the authentication process. The website would then require the Legacy Contact to login using their own credentials and provide the necessary information to Apple. If, by any chance, the access key is lost, the dead user's family members can still gain access to their iPhone but all data and the logged in account would be removed first. Even for this, the family would need to provide a death certificate.
Apple also gives users the ability to remove a Legacy Contact, if they wish to do so.
Once these steps are followed, the Legacy Contact would be removed and the access key that was generated would become void.
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