DNA Testing for Minors: The Privacy Questions to Sit With

Most consumer DNA companies require account holders to be at least 18. Parents can usually order a kit for a minor in the family, with the parent or legal guardian holding the account and consenting on the child’s behalf. The legal mechanics are workable. The harder question is whether the decision is the right one to make on a child’s behalf at all. We think the answer depends on what kind of test it is and what the family is trying to learn, and we want to lay out the considerations honestly.

What COPPA actually says

The federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) regulates online collection of personal information from children under 13. It requires verifiable parental consent before such collection. For a consumer DNA company, COPPA shapes how a parent can create or manage a sub-account for an under-13 child: the company must obtain documented parental consent, and it limits how data from those accounts can be used and shared.

COPPA does not require companies to offer minor accounts at all, and most consumer DNA companies do not. AncestryDNA, 23andMe, and MyHeritage allow parents to test minors under a parent-managed flow, with terms varying by company. The age at which a child can hold their own account is typically 18, sometimes 16 with additional parental documentation.

The FTC’s COPPA page is the primary federal source.

What ACMG and the genetic counseling field say

The American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics has published position statements on genetic testing in children that are relevant here. The short summary: predictive testing for adult-onset conditions should generally be deferred until the child can participate in the decision themselves. The reasoning is that a young child cannot weigh the psychological, social, and insurance implications of knowing their own genetic predisposition, and there is no clinical urgency for most adult-onset conditions that justifies overriding their future autonomy.

This position is specifically about clinical genetic testing, not consumer ancestry tests, but the underlying logic transfers. A consumer test that includes APOE, BRCA, or other adult-onset risk reporting is testing a child for conditions they will not face until adulthood, without their participation in the decision.

The National Society of Genetic Counselors at https://findageneticcounselor.nsgc.org/ is the right place for a parent considering testing a child for health reasons to start.

The data persistence question

A child tested at age 8 will have their genotype sitting in a corporate database for decades. The privacy policy at the company in question may change several times during that span. The company itself may be acquired or restructured, as happened with 23andMe in 2025. Future uses of that data, including future research participation defaults, may be governed by terms the child did not agree to and the parent cannot preview today. Our what happens to DNA data if a company shuts down covers what we have learned from the cases that have already happened.

The child cannot rotate this data the way they could rotate a leaked password later in life. The decision to test is, in effect, a decision made on behalf of an adult who will inherit it.

Three specific situations that need more care

A few cases deserve particular thought before testing a minor.

Adopted children. A consumer DNA test may surface biological-family matches the adoptive parents were not prepared to discuss, or that the biological parents were promised would never surface. The therapeutic and legal context around adoption disclosure varies by state and by family. A counselor experienced with adoption is worth talking to before testing.

Custody and family-conflict situations. Both legal parents typically need to consent to genetic testing of a minor. Testing a child without the consent of the other legal parent can produce real legal problems.

Donor-conceived children. Similar to adoption, the question of when and how a donor-conceived child learns the circumstances of their conception is best made consciously, not by surprise through a DNA Relatives match list. Family therapists and counselors who work with donor-conceived families have published considerable guidance on age-appropriate disclosure.

What we would recommend a parent consider

If the test is purely ancestry-composition (AncestryDNA, MyHeritage, FamilyTreeDNA Family Finder), the case for waiting until the child can participate in the decision is weaker but still real, mostly on the data- persistence and matching grounds.

If the test includes any health predisposition reporting (23andMe, tellmeGen), the ACMG-aligned position is to wait. The information will still be available when the child is an adult, and they will be in a better position to decide whether they want to know.

In either case, declining the DNA Relatives or matching opt-in is the single change that limits the child’s future exposure most. Our how to do a DNA test more privately covers the matching opt-outs by company.

This article sits inside our genetic data privacy pillar. For the related family-network considerations, see family implications of DNA testing. For pre-purchase questions, see questions to ask before DNA testing.