By Sam Blanchard Health Reporter For Mailonline
Published: 11:06 BST, 23 April 2019 | Updated: 12:08 BST, 23 April 2019
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Ancestry websites should be 'forbidden' because they risk sperm donors being contacted by their children against their will, an expert has claimed.
Men in the UK were allowed to donate sperm anonymously until 2005 in the UK and could now have their identities discovered by people researching their family trees.
This, according to Professor Guido Pennings, a bioethicist at Ghent University in Belgium, constitutes a violation of the father's privacy.
Although some donors are willing to be contacted by any children born using their sperm, those who weren't may not be able to avoid being found out online.
Sperm donors could be found out against their will by children using ancestry websites, which constitutes a violation of their privacy, according to one expert (stock image)
'Users violate a person's privacy when they identify and/or contact a person who is not registered on the database,' Professor Pennings said.
'This is especially wrong for [sperm] donors since they have been promised anonymity and are betrayed by the searches.
'People who use ancestry databases to find a donor show disrespect and lack of gratitude.'
He made the comments in the scientific journal Human Reproduction.
Men were allowed to donate sperm anonymously until 2005 in the UK, suggesting there are donor-born adults now who can't find out who their fathers are.
But these men could one day be identified through the genealogy websites even if they haven't added their own information or genetic details, experts said.
As the use of advanced DNA testing becomes more popular, people stand a greater chance of finding close biological relatives online.
Professor Guido Pennings, a bioethics researcher at Ghent University in Belgium, said it was a