VARTA maintains the Central Register of identifying information about all donors, parent(s) and children born from donor sperm, eggs or embryos. 

Your clinic is required by law to provide the following information to the Central Register:

• the parent’s full name(s)
• the child’s full name
• the date and place of the birth.

The parent’s name(s) will appear on the birth certificate as the legal parent(s). The donor’s name will not appear on the birth certificate.

The Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages will also mark ‘donor-conceived’ against their record of the child’s birth.

When a birth certificate is issued to an adult donor-conceived person conceived from 2010, a second page is attached stating that more information about their birth is available.

If the donor-conceived person requests more information, they will be informed that their details are on the Central Register, managed by VARTA. If they did not know previously, they will then find out that they were donor-conceived. 

The second page of the birth certificate can be removed so that it can be used for official purposes, such as applying for a passport, without revealing that they were donor-conceived.

Under the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008 (Vic), recipients and donors have the right to information under certain conditions. Your clinic is required by law to keep specific information about:

• you and your partner (if you have one)
• the donor(s) of the eggs, sperm or embryos
• the child born as a result of the treatment.

The legislation also established donor conception registers to record details of sperm or egg donors, recipient parents and their children.

The woman who receives the donor treatment, and her partner if she has one, are the legal parents of a donor-conceived child.

A donor is not a legal parent of a donor-conceived child. They have no legal rights or obligations to the child born as a result of their donation, or to the parent(s).

Clinics are required to provide VARTA’s Central Register with identifying information about donors, including their name, address and date of birth.

Non-identifying information about donors, parents and donor-conceived children are also kept by VARTA and the clinic. This includes:

• physical characteristics – height, eye colour, blood group
• social information – ethnic background, medical history.

Parents, donor-conceived people and donors can request and receive non-identifying information about each other from their clinic, or from VARTA, at any time, without the need for consent.

The Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008 contains various consent provisions. These provisions relate to issues such as the withdrawal of consent; what happens in the event of death; and permission for a child protection order check to be carried out. Consent must be accompanied by a statement from a counsellor that a criminal record check has been sighted and considered. These provisions must be discussed in the course of counselling, before you consent to treatment, and in the forms that you sign.