Folio 01 of 05The registers
Victoria’s two donor conception registers
Victoria keeps two donor conception registers. The Central Register is the government’s official record of donor conception treatment carried out in the state, and the Voluntary Register is a pathway, built on consent, for the people donor conception connects who are open to finding each other. Both moved to the Department of Health in early 2025.
General information about Victorian law, not legal or medical advice. The official places to check are the Department of Health’s page on donor conception register services and the Assisted Reproductive Treatment Act 2008.
Register one
The Central Register
The Central Register holds the treatment details of every person born from donor conception treatment in Victoria. The department describes it as a database of the names and dates of birth of everyone who is a party to that treatment: donor-conceived people, their parents, and donors.
Its contents built up slowly. Fertility clinics and individuals have supplied the information over many decades, and for treatment before 1988 the department says details were added from old medical records and from updates people sent in themselves.
The Act makes the Donor Conception Registrar responsible for keeping it, in a way the Registrar decides (s 53). One of the things s 53 says it must contain is, for each donor, the number of people born from treatment using that donor’s gametes. The full list is in the Act itself.
Clinics feed it. Under regulation 17 of the 2019 Regulations, a registered ART provider that has carried out a donor treatment procedure must send the Registrar, among other things, the information listed in Schedule 6.
The department is plain about what the Central Register is for: answering requests for information. How to make one is set out in Applying to the Central Register.
Register two
The Voluntary Register
The Voluntary Register works on consent. The department describes it as a way for donor-conceived people, parents, donors and eligible family members who are willing to be found to connect with one another.
Donors hear about it at the start. When a donor gives consent to the use of their gametes, the Act requires them to be told in writing, among other matters, that the Voluntary Register exists and what it does (s 19(b)(iv)).
The Regulations set one rule for how it is kept: entries must be held electronically, in a form that can readily be printed as legible English (regulation 22).
Two points from the department matter to anyone who joined before 2025. A person who has already applied to be on the Voluntary Register stays on it and does not need to apply again. For any new match, though, the department will ask for current details and fresh consent, and it says letters, documents, information or consent given to VARTA in the past will not be passed on to new matches.
Comparison
The two registers side by side
| Question | Central Register | Voluntary Register |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | The official record of donor treatment in Victoria | A pathway based on consent, for people open to connecting |
| Who it serves | Donor-conceived people, parents, donors and descendants of donor-conceived people, who may apply for information | Donor-conceived people, parents, donors and eligible family members |
| Earlier applications | Recorded and still active; no need to apply again | Still on the register; no need to apply again |
| Counselling | Free and confidential for those eligible to use it | Free and confidential for those eligible to use it |
Change of hands
How the registers came to the department
- Before 2025
The Victorian Assisted Reproductive Treatment Authority (VARTA) carried out the functions that have since moved to the department.
- 1 January 2025
Management of the registers, with the regulation of assisted reproductive treatment, passed from VARTA to the Department of Health under the Health Legislation Amendment (Regulatory Reform) Act 2024. Its functions went to the Secretary of the department and a new Donor Conception Registrar employed there.
- In stages
The department is updating how it handles applications and shares information from the registers, bringing the new processes in step by step.
- June 2026
The department’s Central Register page anticipated that the Registrar would begin releasing information in stages from this month, after a delay.
- Late 2026
The department expects to begin releasing identifying information from the Central Register.
The department’s December 2024 guide to the reforms says the 2024 changes removed mandatory counselling for people seeking register information and added a duty on the Registrar to provide prescribed explanatory material. Beyond that, it says, the Act’s rules on managing the registers and on how their information can be reached were left as they were. One part of counselling stayed in the Act: for a child applicant, s 59(b) still lists counselling by a Part 6 counsellor and needs that counsellor’s statement on the child’s maturity.
Your own record
Asking for your own entry
Anyone recorded on the Central Register can ask for a copy of their own record. The department notes that this copy covers only the person asking: it leaves out details of their donors and of anyone else linked to them through donor conception. Information about other people follows the rules in The right to know your donor and, for older donations, Donors from before 1998.