With over a billion people using Facebook, the social network is home to a quickly growing cemetery of accounts belonging to users who have passed on.

Originally, Facebook Inc. had no specific systems in place to deal with these accounts, and few users had the foresight to share account information in the event that they died. Eventually, the social network introduced memorialized pages, which permanently locks an account while still allowing friends and families to post messages on their loved one’s wall.

Now, Facebook has introduced “legacy contacts,” a new feature that allows users to choose a friend or family member to partially control their account.

“For many of us, [Facebook] is also a place to remember and honor those we’ve lost,” says Facebook’s announcement. “Today we’re introducing a new feature that lets people choose a legacy contact—a family member or friend who can manage their account when they pass away.”

How it works

To choose a legacy contact on Facebook, go to Settings > Security > Legacy Contact, and choose a trusted friend or family member from your friend list to be your legacy contact.

When your account becomes memorialized after you pass away, your legacy contact will be given limited control of your account.

Your legacy contact will be able to:

• Make a post to be displayed at the top of the memorialized page
• Respond to friend requests from friends and family who had not yet connected with you through Facebook
• Update your profile photo and cover image

You can also select an option that allows your legacy contact to access an archive of your account data, which includes photos, posts, and other profile information.

Selecting a legacy contact is entirely optional, as is allowing your account to be memorialized. If you would rather have your account disappear when you pass away, there is also an option to request that your Facebook profile be deleted permanently once your page is memorialized.

For now, the legacy contact option is only available to Facebook users in the U.S., but the developers “look forward to expanding to more countries.”

photo credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images