ORCID is an international, interdisciplinary, and not-for-profit organization that provides a robust and universal researcher profile system. ORCID enables transparent and trustworthy connections between your research and your affiliations by providing a unique identifier for you to use with your name as you engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities. Institutions, funders, and publishers are increasingly adopting ORCID into their workflow, application, and submission processes.
Your ORCID ID provides you a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes you from other researchers. It also allows you to easily and uniquely attach your identity to your scholarly works, i.e. datasets, articles, books/book chapters, theses, dissertations, patents, etc.
Journal publishers and databases use ORCID IDs, as well.