Are We
Going Green? 
(2023)

2 The Life of Data (Data and/on Death)

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In 2021, I was working for a non-profit organisation that helps people who pass away alone, without family or friends. The organisation collaborates with the Seoul city government to hold joint funerals for them. If people have the right to live with dignity, shouldn’t they also have the right to die with dignity? Guided by this belief, the organisation aims to change society’s perception of those who die in loneliness. It ensures that their final journey is not taken alone, even if their lives were.

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My task was to arrange and enter the records of these individuals into an Excel file. To do so, I had to go through every document connected to their deaths—police reports, autopsy results, and personal records from district offices. As I filled the blanks in the spreadsheet, I began to see these fragments of information as more than numbers: they were reflections of a social issue. Every single life should not be ignored or marginalised but should be protected by the nation. In this sense, I came to understand the meaning of holding ritual ceremonies and creating graves. They are not simply cultural traditions to preserve; they are respectful ways of granting dignity in death—and, in a sense, in the life that follows. A grave becomes a place of remembering both life and death, presence and absence. Handling this data made me reflect on how governments regard the most vulnerable members of society, and how fragile the fabric of our community can be. To repair it, we need to develop a sense of associativity—an ability to read and analyse data with a different perspective.

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But what about data itself? How do we remember its disappearance? Is there a ceremony, or even a monument, for data loss?

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How does data maintain its life, leaving long traces behind? Have you ever thought about its lifespan? I often encounter pop-ups demanding access to my data, which I find irritating. In theory, companies hold user information only for a set period, discarding it once it expires. Yet it is hard to trust their promises about tracking and protection. The Internet thrives on the cookie crumbs we scatter unconsciously, and companies roll these crumbs together into personalised services. With them, they build entire advertising empires. Once I grant access, my data can spread rapidly to partner networks—before long, I might receive an insurance call or a new mobile plan offer. It seems the life of data is remarkably tenacious. Even unused or deleted data (technically overwritten by zeros or random codes) can often be recovered. So, is there really such a thing as complete death?

Recently I learned about an interesting service that manages personal data after death. As you know, digital traces—accounts, photos, messages—remain unless someone actively deletes them. This service allows families and friends to decide: preserve a digital legacy, or erase accounts to protect identity. The data of the deceased, like that of the living, deserves protection. Unused or abandoned profiles can become easy prey for fraud. How painful it would be to see the account of a loved one misused. Perhaps we need something like a “digital will” while alive. (If you’re curious, here’s an article on the subject: https://adguard.com/en/blog/digital-afterlife-death-tech.html)

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I realise this may sound heavy, so let me shift to a related theme: memory. I often find myself relying on my digital devices for it. Sometimes I recall a moment through photos stored on my phone. Autofill spares me from memorising personal information—phone numbers, bank accounts, credit cards, IDs, passwords. In this sense, perhaps we are edging toward “digital dementia.” Many aspects of daily life already depend on digital memory: mobile apps, dashboard cameras, pet cameras, even thermal imaging devices (especially during the pandemic).

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But is digital memory ever complete? Data collected from devices are often regarded as objective and scientific. They gain trust simply because they are digital, even when we do not know where the information comes from or how it circulates. The problem is not only in the data itself but in how we treat and use it. People fall for fake news and spread it readily. Fragile assumptions become hardened political beliefs. Fear often carries more weight than statistics.

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Think of the human body: countless cells and tissues form organs, which together shape what we perceive as the body. Similarly, a digital image—a fragment of memory belonging to a digital organism—is made up of thousands of tiny pixels, essentially noise. The processor inside the camera corrects these distortions, shaping them into something recognisable to the human eye. Data works in much the same way. On its own, a single data point tells us little about the truth or value of an event. What matters is how we analyse collections of data, and what questions we ask of them.

In that sense, I was reminded—through my work with death records—that every human being has the right to die with dignity.