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Beyond Life: A Digital Will Solution for Posthumous Data Management

Xinzhang Chen, Arash Shaghaghi, Jesse Laeuchli, Salil Kanhere

TL;DR

Beyond Life tackles the fragmentation and opacity of posthumous data management by offering an open-source, cross-platform digital will system that uses a customized PD-CP-ABE scheme for content-level access control, backed by a private blockchain for transparency. The architecture separates concerns among a user-facing Digital Will App and a trusted Digital Will Broker, enabling portable, provider-agnosticWill generation, secure data retrieval, and distributed storage across multiple clouds. Key contributions include the PD-CP-ABE encryption for efficient multi-object access, a private blockchain-based auditing layer with a Broker Behavior Inspector, and a practical implementation with multi-platform integrations and performance evaluation. The work demonstrates feasibility and paves the way for scalable, privacy-preserving, and auditable posthumous data distribution, with open-source artifacts to accelerate adoption and further research.

Abstract

In the digital era, managing posthumous data presents a growing challenge, with current technical solutions often falling short in practicality. Existing tools are typically closed-source, lack transparency, fail to offer cross-platform support, and provide limited access control. This paper introduces `Beyond Life', a cross-platform digital will management solution designed to securely handle and distribute digital assets after death. At the core of this solution is a customized Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption (CP-ABE) scheme, referred to as PD-CP-ABE, which enables efficient, fine-grained control over access to will content at scale. Unlike existing systems, Beyond Life operates independently of service providers, offering users greater transparency and control over how their will is generated, stored, and executed. The system is also designed to be portable, allowing users to change their will service provider. The proposed system has been fully developed and rigorously evaluated to ensure performance and real-world feasibility. The system implementation is made publicly available.

Beyond Life: A Digital Will Solution for Posthumous Data Management

TL;DR

Beyond Life tackles the fragmentation and opacity of posthumous data management by offering an open-source, cross-platform digital will system that uses a customized PD-CP-ABE scheme for content-level access control, backed by a private blockchain for transparency. The architecture separates concerns among a user-facing Digital Will App and a trusted Digital Will Broker, enabling portable, provider-agnosticWill generation, secure data retrieval, and distributed storage across multiple clouds. Key contributions include the PD-CP-ABE encryption for efficient multi-object access, a private blockchain-based auditing layer with a Broker Behavior Inspector, and a practical implementation with multi-platform integrations and performance evaluation. The work demonstrates feasibility and paves the way for scalable, privacy-preserving, and auditable posthumous data distribution, with open-source artifacts to accelerate adoption and further research.

Abstract

In the digital era, managing posthumous data presents a growing challenge, with current technical solutions often falling short in practicality. Existing tools are typically closed-source, lack transparency, fail to offer cross-platform support, and provide limited access control. This paper introduces `Beyond Life', a cross-platform digital will management solution designed to securely handle and distribute digital assets after death. At the core of this solution is a customized Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption (CP-ABE) scheme, referred to as PD-CP-ABE, which enables efficient, fine-grained control over access to will content at scale. Unlike existing systems, Beyond Life operates independently of service providers, offering users greater transparency and control over how their will is generated, stored, and executed. The system is also designed to be portable, allowing users to change their will service provider. The proposed system has been fully developed and rigorously evaluated to ensure performance and real-world feasibility. The system implementation is made publicly available.
Paper Structure (36 sections, 12 equations, 27 figures, 3 tables, 2 algorithms)

This paper contains 36 sections, 12 equations, 27 figures, 3 tables, 2 algorithms.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Background
  3. System Design
  4. Overview
  5. Design Considerations
  6. Digital Will App
  7. Overview
  8. Digital Will Generation Module
  9. Digital Will Broker
  10. Digital Will Private Blockchain and Broker Monitoring System
  11. Digital Will Trigger Module
  12. Data pulling Module
  13. Data Encryption Module
  14. Document Decomposition Module
  15. Key Generation and Distribution Module
  16. ...and 21 more sections

Figures (27)

  • Figure 1: Main entities of the system
  • Figure 2: Digital Will Generation Module
  • Figure 3: DWA as a Digital Will File Generator
  • Figure 4: DWA as an Independent Digital Will Generator
  • Figure 5: Digital Will Broker Overview
  • ...and 22 more figures