Donor anonymity

Donor anonymity describes whether a donor's identifying details are recorded and, one day, released to the person conceived from them. Identity-release systems record and release them at adulthood. Anonymous systems do not. Which applies depends on the country where the donation happens, not where you live.

Where you'll meet it

The moment you start looking at donor eggs, donor sperm or donated embryos. It sits behind the choice of clinic, the choice of country, the waiting list and the price, and it is the one decision in the whole process that your future child cannot revisit.

The two systems

Identity-release, sometimes called open-identity, means the clinic and a regulator record who the donor is. A person conceived that way can apply, usually at eighteen, for identifying information about them. The donor knows this when they donate. It does not create any legal or financial tie, and in the systems that work this way the donor is not a legal parent.

Anonymous donation means no identifying record is kept for release. The child may receive a description, a medical history, sometimes a childhood photograph, and nothing that leads to a person.

Countries have moved in one direction on this over the last two decades, several switching from anonymous to identity-release, and the arguments that drove the change came largely from donor-conceived adults rather than from clinics. The map is genuinely mixed and it changes, so rather than guess what applies where you are, ask the clinic you are considering, in writing, and check the rule for the country you would be treated in rather than the one you live in.

Crossing borders does not import your rules

This is the part most worth knowing. If you are treated abroad, your own country's rules on anonymity do not follow you home. Your child is left with whatever the treating country recorded at the time, which may be nothing.

Waiting times push people abroad, and I understand why. Identity-release systems tend to recruit fewer donors, and the wait for a match, especially for donors who are not white, can run long. That is a real pressure, and it is worth weighing alongside what each system records for your child.

What anonymity now actually offers

Direct-to-consumer DNA testing has changed this. Millions of people have uploaded their genomes to databases that match relatives, and a donor-conceived person who tests will often find cousins even if the donor never tested. Practical anonymity, in the sense of a secret that holds, is no longer something a clinic can promise anyone.

So the real advantage of identity-release is a clear, official record when your child goes looking, with a proper process and support attached, rather than an answer pieced together from a DNA site. That is the choice in plain terms.

The related rules that vary too

Three other things differ by country and are worth asking about at the same time. Whether donors can be paid, and how much, which shapes who donates and how many are available. How many families one donor may create, which is what determines how many genetic half-siblings your child might have. And who counts as the legal parent, which is usually clear inside a licensed clinic and considerably less clear with a private arrangement.

Counselling about all of this is mandatory in some systems and optional in others. Take it either way.

Questions to ask

Ask the clinic which system the donation falls under and get the answer in writing. Ask what information your child would be entitled to and at what age. Ask the family limit and whether it applies nationally or only within that clinic. And ask a lawyer rather than a clinic about legal parenthood if anything about your situation is unusual, because that question belongs to the law of your own jurisdiction.

← Back to the Glossary