The point is that in most of the world various government assigned IDs are just that: IDs and are usually used as such and when they are used as authenticators

The point is that in most of the world various government assigned IDs are just that: IDs and are usually used as such and when they are used as authenticators it is only for low-risk purposes and as an additional authentication check. On the other hand in US knowledge of SSN and few other bits of information is often all that you need to impersonate someone for pretty high-risk transactions.