How are siblings who were conceived using the same sperm or egg donor making connections in the absence of legal support? What is it like to discover you are part of a fifty plus donor sibling group? How are donor-conceived adults using new technologies to connect with their genetic family and explore their identity? This edited collection considers the donor-linking experiences of donor-conceived adults and children, recipient parents, and donors in a global context. It includes contributions from legal academics, social workers, sociologists, psychologists, and policy makers who work in the assisted conception field. As a result, it will be of particular interest to scholars of reproductive law, sociology, and digital media and reproductive technologies. It will also engage those following the debate around donor linking and the use of do-it-yourself technologies, including direct-to-consumer genetic testing and social media.

Curiosity and a desire for medical history often motivate donor-conceived people to search for their donor or other donor relatives. Social-media platforms offer donor-conceived people and their donors opportunities to search for genetic relatives. This chapter takes an in-depth look at how Facebook was used as a search and surveillance tool by the Australian participants in our national study of donor-conceived adults, recipient parents and donors, including their views about acceptable and more controversial uses of the platform. We argue that the affordances of Facebook and the developing cultures of use by members of the donor-conception communities normalise online surveillance of donor relatives. Our research demonstrates how easy it is to find and watch genetically connected others without knowledge or explicit consent. Our research raises questions about how the concept of contact should be understood in the digital age as donor-conceived people and donors navigate virtual boundaries across social-media platforms.