Sperm-donor, DNA & Privacy

Image Source : http://www.wisniewskis.de

Last week, New Scientist, published this article “Anonymous sperm donor traced on internet”, how a 15-year-old boy who was conceived using donor sperm discovered his genetic father.

“The teenager tracked down his father from his Y chromosome. The Y is passed from father to son virtually unchanged, like a surname. The Y is passed from father to son virtually unchanged, like a surname. So the pattern of gene variants it carries can help identify which paternal line an individual has descended from and can also be linked to a man's surname.The boy paid FamilyTreeDNA.com $289 for the service”

“Using another online service, Omnitrace.com, he purchased the names of everyone that had been born in the same place on the same day.”