Keeping track of information by business name can quickly become a difficult exercise. Business name changes or mergers can permanently alter how information is tied to a particular business name, complicating how to identify and store information. Thomson Reuters has created PermID -- or Permanent Identification -- which creates a unique reference —which will never change over time—to a piece of information. It can be thought of as a permnanent "bar code" for information that  helps customers and partners handle data management challenges, eliminate mapping inconsistencies, reduce operational risk, and streamline end-to-end workflow processes across various platforms.  Thomson Reuters is providing an open license to PermID, providing any organization or enterprise with descriptive metadata and tools for working with PermID.