Edlink uses UUID v4 for all IDs. This is a 128-bit number represented as a 32-character string.
The format is 8-4-4-4-12 where each group of characters is a hexadecimal number. For example, a4a6d9e0-04c9-11e3-8ffd-0800200c9a66.
UUIDs are guaranteed to be unique and are randomly generated.
Edlink will assign a UUID to every entity it sees; IDs will not change. If a person is deleted from a system and then re-added, they will have the same UUID as before. This is because these IDs are tied to the external ID of the entity and so if the external ID is the same, the UUID will be the same.
This means if you see an ID in Edlink, you can be sure that it is unique to that entity. You can safely use it to identify that entity in your system and if you see it again, you can be sure it is the same entity. You can also be sure that if you cannot find an entity by its ID, it has been deleted or is no longer shared with your application.
Edlink IDs
Edlink IDs are universally unique and will never conflict, nor will they ever change. Once used to identify an entity, they are bound to that entity. Even when the entity is deleted and recreated, the Edlink IDs will not change.
Because of this, you can store Edlink IDs in your database and use them to identify entities. Additionally, you can be sure that you are always working with the correct entity. IDs can be public and are not considered sensitive information. However, they are not meant to be human-readable and should not be displayed to users. They are primarily a backend tool for use in your application.