There are many different definitions for digital safety deposit boxes. Some people assume it’s a physical safety deposit box with a numeric key, while others think it’s an online password manager. So, what exactly is a digital safety deposit box, and how does it work?
A digital safety deposit box is an online storage platform that helps store all of your vital documents in one central location. In this guide, you’ll learn how these safety boxes work and whether they’re safer than physical safety deposit boxes.
Key Takeaways
A digital safety deposit box is highly encrypted with advanced security protocols and features.
It’s a good idea to upload your information to a digital vault before storing it in a physical safety deposit box.
Trustworthy is the No. 1 choice for a secure digital safety deposit box.
What Is a Digital Safety Deposit Box?
In simple terms, a digital safety deposit box is a modern tool that securely stores and manages your family’s important information. It’s the modern version of old-fashioned safety deposit boxes found at banks.
Nowadays, families have more documents than ever before. From financial documents to medical papers, organizing everything is challenging and inconvenient.
A digital safety deposit box offers an innovative solution as families are looking to move away from paper-based systems. Rather than having important documents scattered throughout your household, you can digitize them and store them online in a digital safe deposit box.
More people have had to turn to digital safety deposit boxes since last year, Reuters reported that a number of banks, like Chase, have stopped offering physical safety boxes. Financial planner in Gainesville, Florida, Aaron Clarke, advises people to use digital safety deposit boxes that “will help organize documents and guidance while giving heirs access to this information electronically, and uniformly.”
Therefore, a digital vault is the most comprehensive solution if you want to safeguard your family’s information, plan your family’s assets, or share important documents. Trustworthy is the most secure digital safety deposit box.
What Is Stored in a Digital Safety Deposit Box?
Although you can’t store physical items such as family heirlooms and cash inside of a digital safety deposit box, there are dozens of items you can store.
These items include:
Life insurance
Home insurance
Car insurance
Wills
Medical records
Legal documents
Medical care guidance
Emergency babysitter instructions
Social Security, 401(k)s, and pensions
Marriage license
Stocks and bonds
Checkings and savings accounts
519 college savings
Financial planning information
Mortgage documents
Passports and Social Security IDs
Driver’s licenses
Usernames and passwords for online accounts
Business contracts and patents
Family photo albums
List of locations for physical items
In essence, you can store digital copies of anything you want inside of your digital safety deposit box.
How Do Digital Safety Deposit Boxes Work?
A digital safety deposit box acts as a digital vault where you can store essential information. Digital vaults let you upload documents and place them in organized folders based on what type of information a document contains. You can also digitize documents by scanning them with a flatbed scanner, photocopier, camera, or phone.
Digitizing your documents creates a picture of the document that you’re saving. Then, you can access the picture and review the document whenever and wherever you need it.
For example, let’s pretend you need your partner’s passport number to book international flights for a future vacation. Instead of hassling your partner and asking them to send it, you can log in to your digital safety deposit box and find a digitized copy of their passport. As long as the passport was previously uploaded, you can access it at any time.
This is the core essence of how a digital safety deposit box works. It offers a convenient and secure way of storing, managing, and organizing all of your family’s crucial information. Best of all, you don’t have to rely on physical storage. Instead, you can access your digital safety deposit box from a phone or computer from anywhere in the world.
Digital Deposit Boxes Are Secure
Digital safety deposit boxes are highly encrypted with advanced security protocols and features. As such, they are extremely trustworthy and safe to store information inside.
The best digital safety deposit boxes prioritize security due to the nature of storing information online. There is no shortage of hackers and people looking to steal data, so digital vaults must provide as much protection as possible.
For this reason, digital safe deposit boxes use multiple techniques to ensure nobody else can access your information. These techniques include 256-bit encryption, aliasing, audits, and receiving security certifications.
Furthermore, a digital safety deposit box provider will never share or sell your information without your permission. The Trustworthy Family Operating System® comes with AES 256-bit encryption and two-factor authentication that keeps your and your family's sensitive information secure.
Features of a Digital Safety Deposit Box
A digital safety deposit box offers ample storage space, accessibility, sharing capabilities, and state-of-the-art security.
With ample storage space, you can upload as much information as you’d like. You can expect 30 to 75 GB of vault storage space with Trustworthy, the most advanced digital safety deposit box.
A digital safety deposit box’s sharing capabilities allow you to share specific documents with specific people. For example, you can share your family photo album with your entire family. However, you can choose only to share your financial documents with your partner.
A digital vault’s best features are its convenience, accessibility, and organization. Digital safety deposit boxes allow you to keep all your documents in relevant storage sections or folders. This way, you can easily access whatever document you need at any time.
As I covered the security features a safety deposit box offers in the previous section, you know that security is the number one priority of any competent digital storage software.
Digital Safety Deposit Box vs. Physical Safety Deposit Box
The key difference between a digital safety deposit box and a physical safety deposit box is apparent in their names. One offers digital storage, while the other offers physical storage. Furthermore, you can access a digital safety deposit box from anywhere in the world, while you can only access a physical safety deposit box at your bank.
Physical safety deposit boxes are a great place to store your important documents after digitizing them into a digital safety deposit box. However, it’s essential to upload your information to a digital vault before storing it in a physical safety deposit box. This is because it’s highly inconvenient to run to your bank every time you need to review a document.
Another key difference between the two storage options is that you can store tangible items like family heirlooms and collectibles in a physical safety deposit box. Although you can store cash in a physical safety deposit box, it’s not recommended because the contents of your safe deposit box are not insured by the bank or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., or FDIC.
Let’s discuss the pros and cons of a physical safety deposit box:
Physical Safety Deposit Box Pros
A cost-effective way to keep valuables private and safe
Offers more security than a home safe
Physical Safety Deposit Box Cons
Small and can only hold a few items
Must keep track of your key
You don’t have 24/7 access
Items are not automatically insured
Items can still get damaged due to natural disasters and fires
Items can still be stolen
Digital Safety Deposit Box vs. Password Manager
Digital safety deposit boxes and password managers offer two different solutions. A password manager stores, generates, and manages passwords for local applications and online websites. On the other hand, you can use digital safety deposit boxes to upload and share information securely.
Digital safety deposit boxes are not equipped with a password manager. This means you can’t generate and automatically log in to websites with a digital safety deposit box. Password managers such as 1Password and LastPass allow you to manage your passwords across all your accounts.
Even if you have hundreds of accounts, all you need to remember for your password manager is your master password. With your master password, you can log in to your password manager and access all of your accounts.
However, it’s essential to keep your master password safe. I recommend storing your master password inside a highly secure digital safety deposit box like Trustworthy. You can combine the use of a digital safety deposit box and a password manager for the most secure password management possible.
Let’s discuss the pros and cons of a password manager:
Password Manager Pros
One master password for everything
Automatically generate complex and unique passwords
Advanced security features
Works across multiple devices
Sharing capabilities
Offers unlimited passwords
Can be combined with a digital safety deposit box
Password Manager Cons
Single sign-on poses a risk
There’s a learning curve
Should You Use a Digital Safety Deposit Box?
Digital safety deposit boxes are ideal for families that want to easily access, organize, and securely share sensitive information.
As such, digital safety deposit boxes are an excellent fit for:
Adults who want to optimize their lives
Married couples who want to share their lives together
Parents who want to prioritize their children’s future
Your aging parents, who may be retired and making a plan for what comes next
Families that want to stay connected and be prepared for all of life’s situations
Individuals who are terminally ill and want to put their homes in order
First responders and servicemen and women in the military who face daily risks
Families that live in regions with natural disasters, floods, wildfires, tornadoes, and hurricanes
For example, suppose you ever need to quickly access your financial documents, your partner’s medical care guidance, your partner’s social security number, or your child’s passport number. In that case, you can use a digital safety deposit box.
How Not to Use a Digital Safety Deposit Box
In the modern age we live in, everyone should use a digital safety deposit box. Solely using physical documents is highly unorganized, and you are at risk of losing or accidentally destroying them. Furthermore, you’re at risk of thieves stealing your sensitive information.
Digitizing your information is the only way to keep it secure and conveniently accessible. As such, there are inherently no situations of when not to use a digital safety deposit box.
However, it’s important to use a digital safety deposit box correctly. You shouldn’t share documents with people you don’t trust. Also, you don't need to upload unimportant documents to your digital safety deposit box. Nonsensitive information can be kept on your computer or email account.
Examples of Digital Safety Deposit Boxes
Now that you understand how digital safety deposit boxes work, let’s discuss a few options.
1. Trustworthy
Trustworthy is an exceptionally secure digital safety deposit box that helps your family upload, collaborate on, and securely share sensitive information. Its Family Operating System® offers customizable templates and categories to make organization a walk in the park.
This digital storage software offers a charming and straightforward interface that makes it simple to keep track of all your documents. Trustworthy features bank-level security with AES 256-bit encryption, so you can have peace of mind knowing all of your information is secure.
When you get started, Trustworthy walks you through a step-by-step process of what documents to upload and how to organize your information. Each plan comes with a 30-minute personalized onboarding session with a dedicated expert to show and teach you how to use the platform.
Key Features
Let’s discuss the key features Trustworthy offers as a digital safety deposit box:
Accessibility
The key feature any digital safety deposit box offers is 24/7 accessibility from any location. Trustworthy goes above and beyond by offering an iOS mobile app to make accessing your documents even more effortless. Nonetheless, you can access your Trustworthy account from any device using the browser website.
Instead of scrambling around your house and digging through filing cabinets to access your documents, you can simply log in to Trustworthy and find them. This level of convenience and accessibility is unmatched.
Furthermore, paper documents are vulnerable to getting lost or destroyed. It can be challenging or even impossible to replace them when this occurs.
Security Protocols
Trustworthy features state-of-the-art security tools such as biometric security, YubiKey, and granular sharing permission. Trustworthy also requires you to set up two-factor authentication. Once you enter your password, you must use a second code sent through SMS, voice verification, hardware security keys, or authenticator apps.
Security is the number one priority of Trustworthy. This software is designed to protect your information from breaches or other threats. Trustworthy works with multiple security providers to enhance the platform’s security architecture.
Furthermore, Trustworthy has many compliance and security certifications, including:
PCI DSS Level 4
McAfee TrustedSite Certified Secure
Norton Secured by Verisign
BBB Accreditation
Organization
Trustworthy offers the best techniques to keep your documents organized and tidy inside its digital safety deposit box. After uploading your documents to the appropriate section, you’ll never have trouble finding them again.
Trustworthy has built-in sections to separate:
Property documents
Insurance policies
Estate documents
Emergency planning
Family archives
Bank accounts
Passwords
Family IDs
You can also create customizable templates to organize your family’s information the way you want. Best of all, your information will be stored at a single location. This means you’ll never lose your documents again and never forget where you placed them.
Sharing Capabilities
Trustworthy allows you to share your documents with whomever you choose. You can also connect your financial planner, lawyer, or other advisors to Trustworthy so they can easily access relevant information.
Limited sharing accessibility is a key feature of a digital safety deposit box.
2. Dropbox
Dropbox is an online storage platform that allows individuals, families, and companies to organize and share their information. This digital safety deposit box offers quality security features and ample storage space.
However, Dropbox lacks the guidance and structure that’s seen in Trustworthy. For example, unlike Trustworthy, Dropbox doesn’t offer a roadmap to help families gather their legal, medical, and financial documents.
Dropbox is better suited to store extensive video and photo folders. In addition, Dropbox offers its Dropbox Vault, a pin-protected folder in your Dropbox account to store your most sensitive information. But you won’t be able to share documents inside of the Dropbox Vault.
3. Google Drive
Google Drive is a cloud storage solution that makes sharing and collaborating on files and folders from multiple devices easy. However, Google Drive was not explicitly designed for family information management.
Instead, Google Drive is mainly used by companies and individuals to store informal documents and files. We believe that you can use Google Drive in unison with Trustworthy. You can store less sensitive information and miscellaneous files on Google Drive and store crucial documents on Trustworthy.
To guarantee the protection of these critical documents, I recommend using our digital storage platform Trustworthy (try it free).
Other Safety Deposit Box Resources
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Trustworthy is an online service providing legal forms and information. We are not a law firm and do not provide legal advice.
