International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI) is an ISO standard (ISO 27729) used by numerous publishers, libraries, retailers, and rights management organizations worldwide. Its purpose is to uniquely identify individuals and organisations involved in creative activities, as well as public figures, pseudonyms, artists, record labels, or publishers.
The ISNI database is sourced from multiple data providers across the globe. To date, more than 15 million ISNIs have been assigned—including nearly two million for organizations. All assigned ISNIs and additional information can be found at www.isni.org.
To avoid duplication, each new ISNI registration undergoes a verification process to ensure sufficient identifying characteristics are provided and to check if a corresponding record for the person or organisation already exists.
As an open standard, ISNI is widely integrated on the web. It not only connects the data records of ISNI registration agencies—drawing from over 80 sources—but also links data from various stakeholders, making it an essential component of Linked Data and Semantic Web applications.
Any registration agency can contribute additional data to an ISNI. To address inconsistencies or errors in data provided by other agencies, the ISNI Quality Team, staffed by experts from the British Library and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, offers support upon request.
The operation of the ISNI standard necessarily involves the collection and maintenance of personal data. ISNI is legally required to comply with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other data protection laws and regulations. Details on all aspects of data collection, security, and management can be found in the ISNI Data Policy.