Brazil Lacks Legal Framework for Digital Inheritance

Brazil has no specific legislation governing digital inheritance, leaving assets such as social‑media accounts, emails, cloud files, tokens, NFTs and cryptocurrencies without clear rules after a person's death. While the General Data Protection Law (LGPD) regulates personal data for living individuals, the National Data Protection Authority (ANPD) clarified in Technical Note No. 3/2023 that the law does not apply to deceased persons, citing that data‑subject status ends with death. Consequently, heirs cannot invoke LGPD protections to access or manage a decedent’s digital assets, and courts rely on civil‑code principles and analogies to other data‑protection regulations.

The lack of dedicated statutes has prompted discussion among legal scholars and practitioners about the need for a specific digital‑inheritance framework to protect both privacy and the patrimonial value of digital holdings.