A system and method for facilitating the recovery and return of lost physical items through a communication network, involving adhering a label having a unique identifier thereon to a physical item; storing a database record including the unique identifier and a user identification, the record further including the name of the owner of the physical item; recovering a lost physical item; receiving, by a client server, the unique identifier associated with the recovered lost physical item; searching, by a processing device, the database for a matching unique identifier with the unique identifier associated with the recovered lost physical item; and communicating to the user the name of the owner of the recovered lost physical item through the communication network.