There was a reference to Bike Index in this video about securing your bicycle:

Cofounded by Seth Herr and Bryan Hance in 2013, Bike Index is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

It is the most widely used and successful bicycle registration service in the world with over 272,000 cataloged bikes, 810 community partners and tens of thousands of daily searches.

Seth built Bike Index when he was a bike mechanic because he wanted to be able to register bikes for his customers. Bryan developed and ran a community driven bicycle recovery service (StolenBikeRegistry.com) that recovered bikes from the first week it was created in 2004.

Merging the two services Seth and Bryan created the universal bike registration service they both dreamed of — a database used and searched by individuals, bike shops, police departments and other apps. A bike registry that gives everyone the ability to register and recover bicycles.

Simple. Efficient. Effective.

I followed through and registered my own bicycle (and in the process learned that my bicycle, like many, has a serial number stamped on the bottom bracket. Who knew!