PSW Digital Continuity Protocol v1.0: The Legal and Technical Framework for Persistent Digital Identity Across the Complete Human Lifecycle

Every human being who builds a verified digital identity will, eventually, die. This is not an edge case to be handled later. It is the guaranteed terminal condition of every user of every identity system in existence, and the internet has no adequate answer to it. The current infrastructure fails the dead in three compounding ways. First, it loses them: families cannot access accounts, contributions become inaccessible, and platforms delete profiles on inactivity timers. Second, it disrespects them: unauthorized individuals impersonate the deceased, platforms process posthumous data without consent, and the person’s verified record — built over a lifetime of work — dissolves into noise. Third, it fails the living: heirs cannot access earned revenue, collaborators lose access to shared work, and institutional knowledge accumulated over decades vanishes without trace. This document fills that gap completely. The PSW Digital Continuity Protocol (DCP) specifies: the Continuity License — a legally valid instrument, executed while the individual is competent, authorizing specific posthumous operations within cryptographically enforced boundaries; the Digital Trustee Framework—the operational structure governing who manages a memorial-state identity and under what fiduciary obligations; the Memorial State Protocol — the precise technical changes to a TIP DID document and PSW node upon memorial activation; the Bounded Posthumous Activity Model—a principled framework distinguishing permissible from impermissible posthumous AI agent behavior, grounded in the human-in-the-loop requirements of PSW v1.0; the Contribution Preservation System—the mechanisms ensuring a lifetime of verified contributions remains accessible, attributable, and protected indefinitely; and the Sunset and Rest Protocol — the dignified deactivation pathway for identities whose principals authorized retirement.