Access to the deceased’s phone
Every day, we help relatives gain access to a deceased person’s phone to secure precious memories, handle administrative matters, or find answers to questions after events such as suicide. Unfortunately, we are not yet able to retrieve the device code for all phones. See also: Everything about accessing a mobile phone after death
Below, you can read what you may already be able to do yourself.
SIM card
Nowadays, no valuable data is stored on the SIM card itself, but with the following tip, you may be able to answer calls coming to your loved one’s phone number, read SMS messages, receive WhatsApp chats, and possibly even receive security codes:
Two-step verification
For some services used by the deceased, a security code is sent to the original phone, also known as two-step verification. Suppose you, as a relative, try to log in to such an account—you may be stuck because the code is sent to the phone whose access code you do not have. What you could do:
- Remove the SIM card from the deceased’s phone and insert it into another smartphone
- When you try to log in somewhere or select “forgot password”—and if two-step verification is enabled for that account—a code will be sent to the smartphone with the SIM card inserted
WhatsApp
WhatsApp is linked to the phone number, and a backup of the chats is often created automatically. If you, as a relative, need access to the WhatsApp history but don’t know the phone’s access code, you could try the following:
- Remove the SIM card from the deceased’s phone and insert it into another smartphone
- Install WhatsApp on this new phone
- If WhatsApp finds a backup of the deceased, restore it on the new phone
- Optionally, create a WhatsApp group to collect all contact info for a card, condolences, and the funeral
It is possible that email verification is also set up on the WhatsApp account, in which case the above steps may not work automatically.
For more on preserving WhatsApp, see our article: WhatsApp after death.
PUK code
To use a SIM card in another phone, you need the corresponding 4-digit PIN code. In some cases, this is set by default to 0000 (four zeros), but if you don’t know it—or if you’ve entered the wrong PIN three times—you can reset it using the PUK code, which is usually provided with the phone subscription. If you don’t know the PUK code either, you can contact the SIM card provider. In our article about the SIM, PIN, and PUK codes, you can find more information about these terms.
Subscriptions
After a death, you should never immediately cancel subscriptions or memberships. In this case, it can be useful to keep the phone subscription active or transfer it to someone else.
