Right to identity: recognition / affiliation of people of the same sex; knowledge of the child's origins in adoption cases.

The complainant, who was not married to the child's mother, had acknowledged his paternity before the youth welfare office. Years later, he had a spit-out chewing gum, which allegedly came from the child, and his own saliva sample genetically analyzed by a private laboratory without the knowledge and consent of the child and the mother. The analysis revealed that the donor of the saliva sample could not be the biological father of the child from whom the counter-sample allegedly came. 
The action to contest paternity based on this was unsuccessful before the higher regional court and the Federal Supreme Court on the grounds that it was unlawful to examine genetic material from another person without that person's express consent due to a violation of the fundamental right to informational self-determination. 
The complainant claimed that his general right of personality had been violated, which gave rise to a claim by the putative father to have the parentage of a child clarified by him in court.
The FCC held that the rejection of the utilization of a secretly obtained genetic parentage report as evidence complied with the Basic Law. Nevertheless, to realize the right of the legal father to know the parentage of his child from him, the legislature had to provide a suitable procedure. 
The general right of personality guarantees not only the right of a man to know the parentage of the child legally assigned to him, but also to realize it. The possibility of obtaining a paternity report in private is closed in the absence of consent. The secret obtaining of a corresponding expert opinion constitutes a violation of the child's right of self-determination and the mother's right of custody protected by Article 6.2 of the Basic Law.
However, the man's right to know the parentage of a child from him requires the initiation of proceedings in the event of doubt. It is true that access to the child's genetic data is accompanied by a restriction of the right of self-determination and - if recognized - of the right not to know one's own parentage. However, the child's right not to disclose this data is less worthy of protection. 
Nor does the mother's right of personality conflict with this. The paternity challenge proceedings do not take account in a constitutional manner of the father's right solely to knowledge of the child's parentage from him because of the overriding aim of legal separation from the child in the event of a finding of no parentage. The statutory requirements for a challenge are also disproportionate in relation to the interest in mere ascertainment.