Sperm donor app that bypasses fertility rules is a 'serious risk', warn experts

The controversial founder of a Danish sperm bank has launched a new app in the UK that allows sperm donors to enter into private arrangements, circumnavigating rules set out by the fertility regulator.

- Emma Haslett

Y Factor, which became available in the UK last month, allows potential sperm donors and women or couples seeking a donor to register profiles, then select whether they would like the donation to take place through a clinic, through sexual intercourse, or through “do-it-yourself (home insemination)”.

Users can also choose what kind of relationship they would like to have after a child is conceived, and whether or not they would like to pay or be paid for the donation. Paying for sperm donated via clinics is illegal in the UK, but private arrangements exist in a legal grey area.

The app was the brainchild of Ole Schou - who is also funding it - and is the founder of Denmark-based Cryos International, which bills itself as the world's largest egg and sperm bank. Cryos was the subject of criticism last year after a Netflix documentary, The Man With 1,000 Kids, revealed that a Dutchman, Jonathan Jacob Meijer, who had fathered hundreds of children, had used its Danish clinics.