Microsoft must give the parents and sisters of a man who died in July 2021 access to his Hotmail and OneDrive account. The Amsterdam District Court has determined this after summary proceedings brought against Microsoft by the relatives.
The family members had first corresponded with the tech giant themselves to gain access to the deceased’s Microsoft user accounts. However, Microsoft informed the family by email on Oct. 7 that it would only consider whether the company could provide access under applicable law after receiving a court order.
Microsoft defended itself by stating that the content of an (email) account is not good within the meaning of Article 3:1 of the Dutch Civil Code. “Even if the heirs had become a party to the Microsoft Services Agreement (MSA), that would not imply immediate access to the testator’s account,” the company said.
The judge disagreed and ordered Microsoft to give the family members access to ‘all data belonging to the deceased or data that he had at his disposal under the MSA concluded with him’. This includes data stored in the cloud and the mailboxes of the deceased.
In addition, Microsoft also has to pay the costs of the proceedings and risks a penalty of ten thousand euros per day if the sentence has not yet been met twenty days after the sentence was served.