[jarman]

Government will identify citizens anyway. It's not choice between ID and no ID, but between simple ID and ad-hoc scheme (Name/Surname/Birthdate/Residence composite, or issuing separate id for each institution).

While IDs do have negative consequences, I see zero downside in replacing VATIN, passport number (linked list of "previous document" in worst case, down to birth certificate), army id number, employment record book number and "$surname $name $patronymic, born $birth_date at $birth_place, registered $registration_place" official title with single citizen ID.

[throwanem]

Centralization and slack are inversely proportional. If everybody is reliably and unambiguously identified from birth by a single government-issued and -maintained key, and that government turns against its citizens (or is overthrown, compromised, et cetera), you're basically hosed.

[jarman]

That data is already centralized and interlinked. There is no 'slack' (ambiguity and leeway) as far as government is concerned.

I am not arguing for using government-issued IDs for non-government services (as in original post), and consider enforcement of such use a direct attack on citizen freedom, but only for having single ID for use in state-person relations.

[creshal]

> That data is already centralized and interlinked.

Not in all countries. Germany used to have explicit laws against combining state and federal record bases, they were only recently eroded to "fight terrorism".