The ID number is used to identify us in all the government databases, it's an universal foreign key. If the police want to know my address then they use our x-r

The ID number is used to identify us in all the government databases, it's an universal foreign key. If the police want to know my address then they use our x-road to connect to the API of the population registry and call a method to get my address using my ID number. If they want to see what cars I own and if I have done my yearly technical inspection then the use my ID number to get the data needed. When someone wants a loan or anything like that then we have to show our real ID card or passport, or authenticate on the web with our smartcard and pin. So nobody can do stuff that's possible in the us - apply for credit cards and loans without authenticating properly.