ISO/IEC 6523

ISO/IEC 6523 Information technology – Structure for the identification of organizations and organization parts is an international standard that defines a structure for uniquely identifying organizations and parts thereof in computer data interchange and specifies the registration procedure to obtain a so-called International Code Designator (ICD) value for an identification scheme.

The standard consists of two parts:

Part 1: Identification of organization identification schemes defines a structure for the identification of organizations and parts thereof. The components of this structure are the following:

• an International Code Designator (ICD) value, which uniquely identifies the authority which issued the code to the organization, up to 4 digits
• an organization identifier, up to a maximum of 35 characters
• an (optional) organization part identifier (OPI), up to a maximum of 35 characters (An organization part can be any kind of entity within an organization.)
• an (optional) OPI source indicator, 1 digit, specifying who attributed the OPI

Part 2: Registration of organization identification schemes defines the registration procedure for ICD values. This includes:

• the registration authority for ICD values is Farance Inc. on behalf of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).
• the specific procedures for the allocation and deletion of ICD values
• the contents of the register/list of the registered identification schemes

(A list of allocated ICD values is available here. An up to date list may also be acquired by contacting the registration authority.)

Further information concerning ISO/IEC 6523 and on how to obtain an ICD value can be found here.

ISO/IEC 6523 forms the basis of OSI naming under ISO/IEC 8348. It also forms the 1.3 object identifier (OID) tree.

The most widespread standard compliant with ISO 6523 norm is the identifier called "Global Location Number" (GLN), developed by GS1 company members. In B2B exchanges, it is widely used by companies to identify locations or functions within a location (for example : a factory, the accounting department of a company, an administration, a warehouse, a delivery address, ...). It has become a key to exchange business messages (orders, invoices, ...) using UN/EDIFACT specifications.

The ebCore Party Id Type Technical Specification was issued by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). It was elaborated by the OASIS ebXML Core Technical Committee and it specifies a Uniform Resource Name (URN) namespace for organization identifiers. It bases upon ISO/IEC 6523, ISO 9735 and ISO 20022.