Op-Ed: A Mom Is Haunted by Her Daughter's Digital 'Ghost'

Your phone can misfire in cruel ways, writes Danielle Crittenden in a Wall Street Journal essay about losing her 32-year-old daughter—and then being unable to escape her digital trail. Crittenden describes how Bluetooth prompts, Facebook "memories," streaming recommendations, even saved shipping addresses keep surfacing daughter Miranda's name and preferences, offering constant, jarring reminders of a life that ended suddenly in February 2024 after complications from a brain tumor removed years ago. "Every time her ghost pops up on a device, my heart is ripped anew."

At the same time, Crittenden sees a cruel irony in the fact that "big tech adamantly blocks access to the data we do want." Named executor in Miranda's will, her husband tried to access Miranda's iPhone, MacBook, Gmail, and phone records—maybe their writer daughter has unpublished essays or sent a final message?—only to face refusals from Apple, Google, and AT&T without multiple tailored court orders. Even then, they received only partial access. The result, she writes, is a painful mismatch: The internet won't stop pushing out unwanted reminders, yet keeps her daughter's writings, photos, and final messages locked away. Read the full essay.