Every business, no matter the size, should have an Emergency Plan. That Plan should include the obvious – what you and your employees should do if there is a natural or other disaster. However, you need to include more. Consider QuadrigaCX, one of Canada’s largest BitCoin exchanges with approximately $190 million in investments. Its bank accounts have been frozen and investors have been locked out of their accounts since last year. Those investors have taken to social media to criticize the Company, attack the Company founder’s wife, and spread a host of, sometimes bizarre, explanations for the frozen accounts. This backlash is a result of the Company founder’s untimely death at age 30. After his death last fall, his wife reported that she had his computer, but did not know the passwords to access the Company accounts or the encrypted backup codes to allow the passwords to be changed. Because of the particular secrecy related to BitCoin, there is no simple way to change to passwords. Therefore, she has reportedly hired forensic consultants who are attempting to access the accounts, so far, without success and has had to Petition a Canadian Court to intervene.Obviously, few of us are the owners of large BitCoin exchange companies. However, if you own your own business, consider for a moment all of the critical information about your company that resides only in your head or in computer files that only you know the password to access. I often ask my clients, what would happen if you were seriously ill or in an accident? Would your business be able to continue to operate? Often, the answer is no or there is a realization of all of the work that would need to be done to allow day-to-day tasks to continue. This is why it is critical that business owners make and update a detailed, written Emergency Plan for their business. It is also important to make certain that key employee(s) or family members are designated to carry out the Plan in the event of an emergency. Because the information in your Plan will be highly sensitive, you need to be careful in your planning. You don’t want to make your business susceptible to a security breach while planning for an emergency.Attorney Jack Gross counsels businesses of all sizes in general matters pertaining to the day-to-day operations of their business. He also has specific experience in the areas of intellectual property, internet law, privacy, and data security.