You’re conflating the real life need of ID, with trust in the organisation.

Sorry. Wrong.

I've experienced this "solved problem" when visiting Germany during COVID. On every entrance to a mall there was somebody with a scanner device, and they only let you in if the scanner showed a green mark. I've been fully vaccinated (not EU) but my code didn't show a green mark on their scanner and I was promptly denied entry. The solution was to show them my German friend's code on my phone, this registered just fine, so I could enter anywhere.

So the whole "eID/CAs/ZKP/PKI" mumbo jumbo can be easily fooled by a gif file.

In my experience, hotels in other countries also take a copy of the passports of all guests.

Also learned “know your customer” laws require US people to give passport + SSN to a foreign bank who then reports it back to the US. Given that such bank’s website involves disabling right-click for “security”, the only glimmer of hope is that the data is catastrophically lost due to stupidity before it can be compromised.

The only times I had to provide a scan of my passport was to cross a border:

    - get a VISA to be allowed to cross the border
    - send to the airline for my flight that will cross the border
    - show the real passport at the border

The difficulty for the US is people seem to be against a Federal Government ID. India doesn't seem to have this stigma and hence rural India can solve this problem.

every application packet for a US National Security clearance for twenty years, was stolen in bulk, by Chinese agents. Your characterization of the perfection of US Federal data management appears to be lacking nuance.

IDs being required for voting is essentially a poll tax the way that it's argued for in the US. There's a minimum amount you have to spend to even get one that will expire in a certain amount of years.

That's also assuming you can get all the documents you need for the initial ID. If you don't already have all the essential documents you'll need multiple appointments at government facilities. The local social security office usually has just one location. Mine required time off from work because they were open from 10 till 4 four days a week. This was just part of the process to get an ID for a child when we only had a copy of a couple documents instead of the originals.

Getting an ID for my grandma who made the mistake of being born black in the rural South during Jim Crow was a year long process, since she didn't even have originals of most of the documents. It took that long and was handled by one of her children that was a lawyer. For her we were getting an ID so the family could take her traveling, years before it was turned into a political issue to disenfranchise people.

Nobody arguing for the ID laws ever argues for raising their taxes for an ID that all citizens are guaranteed with the supporting infrastructure. They're arguing for it because they know people they don't want to vote will have trouble getting one

It is a problem for millions of Americans: https://voteriders.org/article/who-doesnt-have-an-id-in-amer...

Systemic racism is very much a thing, and while perhaps not foundational in this particular issue, we see still see political fuckery that definitely targets by race: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/tarrant-count...