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Comment by mihaic | Hacker News Reader

I totally agree with you, although I'd imagine for the US your first uphill battle would be to convince people that a central government ID is a good idea. I've been mentioning this idea in private conversations in Europe for many years, even here people react almost violently against it.

I'm always surprised at people saying that "government can't tech", without ever demanding competence from the thing that takes a good chunk of their income.

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In the US we each have a Social Security Number, which is a central government ID. I think that would be sufficient for user assignment

SSN alone shouldnt be sufficient for account creation so you'd probably have to jump through the usual 2-3 forms of ID to get access to your account, but then the email itself could act as another form of ID. Which would be super useful in lots of situations, especially if you lose one of your other forms.

Also there is a lot of digital user verification workaround right now that would be solved by this. I would much rather interact with a government controlled email address than scan and send a copy of my drivers license to online services

> in Europe [...] people react almost violently against it.

Are you saying this doesn't exist? Idk about other countries, but at least in Denmark they have this today. While some people quibble about various small issues with the system, I definitely think they're much better off than the US.

Re-reading, I definitely mis-spoke: I meant I've spoken about a government provided email system, as IDs are standard almost everywhere except perhaps the UK. Yes, I do agree that the problems with a central ID are solvable instead of the insanity of the US system.

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