n. — historical, Ethnicities
an identification number on a leather or metal disc that was issued to Inuit people by the federal government of Canada.
Type: 1. Origin — Disc numbers were introduced in the 1940s and used until the early 1970s. Their primary purpose was the administration of social services (see the 1990 quotation), yet the practice of issuing "tags" (see the 1997 quotation) for the Inuit population now appears questionable (see the 2001 quotation). Some Inuit, however, take pride in their number (see the first 2006 quotation) or found use for it outside of its original domain (see the 1995 quotation).
See also COD-2, s.v. "disc number", which is marked "Cdn hist.".