With more and more consumers storing personal assets in the cloud, a survey has revealed that an increasing number of people are now passing on the login details to a ‘digital inheritance’ when they die.

The hosting company Rackspace has teamed up with the Centre for Creative and Social Technology (CAST) at the University of London to create ‘Cloud Generation’, a report featuring the results of a survey of 2,000 British adults.

The findings from the survey revealed that as consumer use of the cloud grows so too does the number of people who plan to pass on their usernames and passwords in their will. With digital assets like personal photos, videos, music and documents stored in the cloud, there is a growing fear that these will be lost upon their death.

Out of the 2,000 respondents, 11 per cent said they had ‘addressed their digital entities with care – e.g. they have left passwords to their digital treasures in their will – or are at least planning to do so,’ while 53 per cent stated they ‘have what they consider 'treasured possessions' stored with cloud services’.

Fabio Torlini, vice president of cloud at Rackspace, said: “The cloud is becoming more and more part of our everyday work and personal life. With the large investment so many UK adults seem to be making in digital treasures, it's imperative that people consider the associated security and legacy implications.

“Businesses have a great opportunity now to shape consumer understanding of cloud computing and build trust. It's important to remember that although cloud is for everyone, it's not for everything.”

The survey also served to highlight how the ‘cloud generation’ are using cloud services instinctively – they are unaware how and when they are doing so but it has become a part of their day-to-day lives.

"This group of pre-teens are digital natives and do not distinguish between hardware, software or data – cloud is simply a way of life,” the report says.