Data of donor-born Victorians at risk of being compromised

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Uncovering their biological roots can be one of the most important discoveries for people born via a donor. But in Victoria that information is at risk of being lost according to leaked internal reports from the state's fertility regulator.

Transcript

00:006-year-old Zali is keenly aware of how she came into the world.

00:08Do you ever want to meet your donor?

00:10Yes.

00:11She was conceived using a sperm donor and at 18, Zali can choose to connect with that

00:16donor via a government registry.

00:19If she wants to reach out sooner than that, I'll just take her lead.

00:23She can choose what she wants.

00:25But internal reports from the reproductive regulator seen by the ABC have cast doubt

00:31over that plan.

00:32One report found the database, which holds information on more than 35,000 donors and

00:38donor recipients, was at extreme risk of being compromised, meaning it was vulnerable to

00:43being hacked or accessed by unauthorised staff.

00:48Another showed there were major concerns over ongoing data corruption and irreplaceable

00:52information was at risk of being lost.

00:55Documents also showed the Victorian government would not fund an IT upgrade because there

01:00was no direct economic benefit.

01:03Making sure that we have a system where this information is entirely secure is critical.

01:09To many young people, it's a massive piece of their identity.

01:13The health department will take over regulating reproductive technologies like donor conception

01:18next year and says it's working on a new system with data security as a key consideration.

01:24The registry is the only formal way donor conceived children, like Zali, can find out

01:29about their biological roots.

01:31I never considered there would be any problem with that.

01:36I never thought it could go away.

01:37I never thought there could be mistakes made.

01:40Her not being able to reach out and meet her donor just is terrifying.

01:45There is uncertainty ahead for thousands of donor conceived Victorians.

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