Facebook unveils new feature called “legacy contacts”

Facebook has unveiled a new feature called ''legacy contacts'' to allow users to bequeath their homepage and account to a digital heir.

This means that the 35 million UK Facebook users can now appoint a friend or loved one to maintain their social media account after their  death.

The feature has been alive in the UK since Monday enabling users to appoint the social media heir right away. Users who want their account to be deleted upon their death, could flick that switch too - although someone would need to inform Facebook about the death.

The social network's previous policy was to freeze a profile upon death allowing them to serve, they claimed, as a memorial.

The network, with almost 1.4 billion users worldwide, had received "hundreds of thousands" of requests since it began ''memorialising" pages of those who had died in 2007.

Anyone nominated as a legacy contact would be able to write a post that was displayed at the top of the profile and change profile images on the page.

They would even be allowed to accept or refuse new friend requests on behalf of the deceased, but they would not be able to edit what the deceased had already posted, what friends continued to post on the page or remove tagged images. They would also not be able to delete the account.

According to Facebook a legacy contact was "someone you choose to look after your account if it's memorialized."

With legacy contacts feature, users above 18 years of age would be able to appoint one of their Facebook friends or family members as an heir granting them the rights to administer the account after their death.

The online executor would be able to share a final message on the user's behalf or "provide information about a memorial service," update the cover and profile photograph, as also add "old friends or family members who weren't yet on Facebook".

The legacy contact can also be granted additional permission to download the photo archive or archive of posts or profile details shared on Facebook.

According to the social network, the legacy contact did not have rights to change existing friends / privacy settings, remove or edit previous posts, see private messages of the profile, or log in as the user who passed away.

"Facebook is a place to share and connect with friends and family. For many of us, it's also a place to remember and honor those we've lost." said Vanessa Callison-Burch, product manager at Facebook.