When did they make the change? Anyone know when, or why?
It happened in 2018 when NamUs 2.0 was launched and NamUs became housed on the NIJ Cloud. During the transition, NamUs went from .org to
.gov, I.e. a
government website, when things got tightened up considerably including: hiding biometic info from public view, no longer receiving updates/changes to cases we tracked and going from 2 passwords (one for identifyus.org & one for findthemissing.org) to only one at namus.gov.
On the other hand, that's also when registered users were able to view rule outs for missing persons, which had previously been hidden from public view.
Oh, and we had to re-register.
From NamUs on May 13, 2018:
On May 21, 2018, you may access NamUs 2.0 from
www.NamUs.gov using your existing username and password. Upon your first login, you will be required to activate your new NamUs 2.0 account and update your password to begin using the new system.
We sincerely thank you for your support and understanding throughout our transition to NamUs 2.0!
The NamUs 2.0 Development Team