On this page we describe what information people conceived from your donation at a licensed clinic can ask us for and when, as set out by law.
However, it’s important to know that it’s also now possible for home DNA testing and matching services, available online, to result in you being identified, regardless of when you donated.
People use these sites to find out about their ancestry, health and/or identify their genetic relatives. Many of the sites also allow users to ‘match’ and make contact with other users on their database with whom they are genetically related, often using their real names.
Even if you don’t use one of these sites yourself, if one of your close genetic relatives and someone conceived from your donation are both signed up to it, you could potentially become identifiable. Your identity could be inferred, if information about genetic ‘matches’ is combined with other publicly-available information about you (eg, information about you on social media). If you donated before 31 March 2005 you may have donated under the conditions of anonymity and expected never to be contacted by anyone born as a result of your donation. It may be a shock to realise that you could be identified or contacted by someone born from your donation.
If you donated after 1 August 1991 at a UK licensed clinic you may wish to contact us to apply for information about the number of children born from your donation. If the donation or treatment took place before August 1991, you may wish to find out more information about the Donor Conceived Register.
The Donor Conceived Register, run by the Liverpool Women's NHS Foundation Trust, helps to connect donor-conceived people who were conceived before 1 August 1991 with their donor and siblings. You may wish to find out about our support and intermediary service for people affected by post-donation issues if you donated between 1 August 1991 and 31 March 2005 (when donors were automatically considered anonymous) or are considering re-registering to become an identifiable donor. If you donated before 1 August 1991 you may wish to find out more about peer support and counselling provided by the Donor Conceived Register.