Published on CBC News
By Rosa Marchitelli, Updated: February 11th, 2021
Woman locked out of account due to U.S. law often applied to Canadians:
Carol Anne Noble is one of several Canadians who have tried to gain access to their late loved ones’ digital accounts but been stymied by tech companies’ enforcement of U.S. privacy laws.
An Ontario widow is locked in a four-year battle with Apple over online material she already legally owns. Carol Anne Noble of Toronto wants access to an Apple account she and her husband shared — but was under his name — so she can fulfil a promise she made to him before he died. But instead of giving her the password she’s forgotten, the tech giant is demanding she jump through complicated and expensive legal hoops to satisfy what experts say is an outdated American law.
“It’s a real slap in the face to me,” said Noble who, after 41 years of marriage, was the executor and sole beneficiary of her husband’s estate. Don Noble died from a rare spinal cancer in late 2016. “Basically, they want an order from the court to give me what my husband owned and it is already bequeathed to me… it’s very strange,” Noble, 66, told Go Public.
Apple refused Go Public’s request for an interview and didn’t respond to our specific questions about Noble’s situation and its policies on digital assets.
Experts say that tech companies refusing to hand over digital assets is a problem affecting everything from stocks, insurance policies and PayPal to gaming credits, social media posts and family photos. It’s a “big” problem that will “only get bigger,” leaving Canadians at the mercy of the U.S.-based companies and their rules.
