The death certificate

Article 78 of the Civil Code defines the death certificate as :

" The death certificate will be drawn up by the civil registrar of the municipality where the death took place, on the declaration of a relative of the deceased or on that of a person possessing the most exact and complete information on his or her civil status that is possible.

What is on the death certificate

A death certificate is a complete copy of the information contained in the death certificate recorded in the civil register.

In accordance with article 79 of the civil code, the death certificate mentions the following elements

• Date, time and place of death;
• First name, last name, date and place of birth, occupation and residence of the deceased ;
• First names, surnames, occupations and residences of his parents;
• First name and surname of spouse or civil union partner ;
• First names, surname, age, occupation and domicile of the declarant (if applicable, his degree of relationship with the deceased).

In principle, and in accordance with Article 20 of the decree of May 6, 2017 on civil status n°2017-890 whose provisions its effective date is January 1, 2020:

" Full copies of death certificates and certificates of stillborn children may be issued to any person. However, when the communication of the information contained in the death certificate is likely to prejudice, given the circumstances of the death, the safety of the persons named in the certificate, the public prosecutor may limit the issuance of full copies of the certificate to the persons mentioned in the preceding paragraphs as well as to the rightful claimants of the deceased, on condition that they provide proof of the usual surname and first names of the deceased's parents."

There is no charge for requesting a death certificate.

Thus, the request for a death certificate is unconditional except in the case where the issuance has been limited by the Public Prosecutor.

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Post-mortem personal data.

Article 84 of the French Data Protection Act establishes the principle of non-transferability according to which personal data "are extinguished at the death of the person concerned". The deceased cannot therefore be a source of new personal data and the rights attached to the data generated during his or her lifetime (right of access, modification, deletion, etc.) are not transferable to his or her beneficiaries.

However, there are exceptions to this principle. Indeed, the death of a person requires that his or her "digital death" be organized, which justifies that his or her rights be "provisionally maintained according to his or her directives".

Article 85 of the French Data Protection Act provides that the "person concerned" may define general or specific directives relating to the conservation, deletion and communication of his/her personal data after his/her death. The user may also designate a person, distinct or not from the heirs, who will be in charge of enforcing the directives. In addition, the Data Protection Act specifies that the directives given may be general or specific.

Thus, a user having subscribed to the services of Solal Tech, can define particular directives relating to the conservation, the erasure and the communication of his personal data after his death. Thanks to the Solal Tech platform a subscriber can decide the beneficiary (ies) of his social networks post-mortem.

It is important to note that the instructions given to Solal Tech by the user can be modified or revoked at any time by the person concerned.

To conclude, by virtue of the right to privacy, which includes the right to secrecy of correspondence and the right to image, the beneficiary designated by the deceased on the Solal Tech platform cannot have access to the digital data before the death of the deceased.

👉 Secure your digital data on Solal Tech.