THE number of dead Facebook account holders could outnumber the living within 50 years, new research claims.

Oxford Internet Institute (OII), part of Oxford University, found that based on 2018 user figures, at least 1.4 billion of the site’s around 2.3 billion users will die before 2100, with the number of dead overtaking the living by 2070.

However, the researchers said that if the platform was to continue growing at its current rate of about 13per cent each year, the number of dead users on the site could reach as high as 4.9 billion by the end of the century.

Facebook, which also owns WhatsApp and Instagram, is the world’s largest social networking platform.

Lead author of the research, Carl Ohman, said: “These statistics give rise to new and difficult questions around who has the right to all this data, how should it be managed in the best interests of the families and friends of the deceased and its use by future historians to understand the past.

“The management of our digital remains will eventually affect everyone who uses social media, since all of us will pass away and leave our data behind.

“But the totality of the deceased user profiles also amounts to something larger than the sum of its parts.

“It is, or will at least become, part of our global digital heritage.”