Principle
Family Ownership
Families should not feel that their memories belong to a platform simply because the platform stores them.
Safe Memory Principles
Memorial technology deserves higher trust standards than ordinary software.
Safe Memory begins from the view that memorial products deal with grief, family memory, and emotional permanence. That makes their design choices morally and practically different from standard engagement software.
Safe Memory is designed to make memorial technology legible before a family has to trust it.
Principle
Review Before Inclusion
Memorial contributions should be intentionally approved rather than silently folded into a permanent archive.
Principle
Clear Permission Boundaries
Access settings should be visible, understandable, and specific enough that families know who can contribute or view.
Principle
Portable Memory
A family should be able to retain and recover the materials they created without specialist help.
Principle
Low Lock-In Dependence
Memorial continuity should not rely on fear of leaving or uncertainty about what becomes inaccessible later.
Principle
Dignified Use
Memorial systems should be designed for remembrance and stewardship rather than extraction, growth mechanics, or opaque reuse.
Principle
Continuity Matters
Long-term access, continuity planning, and archive resilience deserve explicit design attention in memorial products.
Principled design
These principles exist because memorial products carry emotional permanence.
They are intended to hold the category to a higher standard than ordinary engagement software.
Why this matters here
Memorial products carry different obligations than ordinary tools.
When a product stores family memories, invited contributions, and long-term remembrance material, its design choices affect more than convenience. They shape who remains in control and what becomes difficult to recover later.
From principles to practice
The framework translates these principles into public scoring criteria.
Safe Memory is meant to be inspectable. The principles matter most when they can be turned into criteria that are published, explained, and compared.