Every artwork in the world deserves a permanent identity.
The Universal Art Identification Number — UAIN — is a patent-pending identification system developed by Art Trackers. Every artwork registered on the platform receives a UAIN, displayed in AT-ID format: AT-00000001. One number. One artwork. Permanently.
The Problem
Art has always had an identity problem.
Every other asset class has a universal standard. Art has none of this.
VIN — Vehicles
17 characters, globally recognised, permanently attached to every car ever made.
ISBN — Books
Assigned at publication, traceable across every library, bookstore, and database on earth.
ISIN — Securities
Standardised across every market, exchange, and jurisdiction worldwide.
Art Has Nothing
Until now.
A painting can be bought, sold, loaned, restored, stolen, and recovered — and at each stage, its identity may be recorded differently by different institutions, in different databases, using different naming conventions that do not talk to each other.
Provenance disputes cost the art market billions of dollars annually. Forgeries circulate because there is no universal standard to verify against.
The Solution
One number. One artwork. Forever.
Permanent
Once issued, the UAIN belongs to that artwork for life. It cannot be transferred, reused, or deleted.
Universal
Designed to be recognised across institutions, jurisdictions, markets, and platforms.
Physical
Every UAIN is linked to an NFC tag affixed directly to the artwork. The number and the object are permanently connected.
Verified
Issued against a record containing the artist's name, creation date, medium, location, and provenance history.
Open
The public record behind any UAIN is accessible to anyone, anywhere, at no cost.
From registration to verification.
Five steps from creation to permanent verification.
Registration
An artist, government agency, or institution registers an artwork. A UAIN is assigned immediately, displayed as AT-ID format: e.g. AT-00000247.
Physical linking
A pre-programmed NFC tag carrying the UAIN is affixed to the artwork. The number and the physical object are now inseparable.
The record grows
Every event in the artwork's life is logged against the UAIN: ownership transfers, exhibition loans, condition assessments, conservation treatments. Append-only. Nothing ever erased.
Verification
Anyone can verify an artwork by scanning the NFC tag or entering the UAIN at arttrackers.com. The full verified record appears instantly. No account required.
Permanence
The UAIN and its record are designed to outlast any single platform, administration, or business cycle. The number belongs to the artwork. Not to us.
The Bigger Picture
What changes when every artwork has a permanent identity.
For the Art Market
Provenance disputes become resolvable. Forgeries become identifiable. The opacity that has defined the art market for centuries begins to lift.
For Artists
Your UAIN belongs to your work permanently — not to the gallery, auction house, or collector's database. Your name stays attached to your work forever, in every jurisdiction.
For Government
Public collections become permanently documented. The UAIN survives every administration change, staff departure, and budget cut.
For the Public
Art in public space becomes accessible. Scan the tag, read the story. No membership. No ticket. No tour guide.
The Vision
The UAIN is infrastructure.
The most transformative identification systems in history were not built to serve one company. The VIN serves manufacturers, regulators, insurers, buyers, and governments. The ISBN serves publishers, libraries, retailers, and readers. Neither belongs to a single organisation.
The UAIN is built with the same ambition. Art Trackers created it and issues it — but the vision is a world where every artwork, registered by anyone, anywhere, carries a UAIN recognised by every gallery, museum, auction house, insurer, and government on earth.
That infrastructure does not exist yet. We are building it.
Every artwork registered on Art Trackers today is part of that foundation. Every UAIN issued — every AT-ID assigned — is one more artwork with a permanent identity in a world where most art still has none.
The art ecosystem has needed this for a long time. The technology to build it exists now. The only thing left is to do it — one artwork at a time.
The Universal Art Identification Number (UAIN) is a patent-pending identification system developed by Art Trackers LLC. UAIN and AT-ID refer to the same identifier. All rights reserved.