You do not need it to be the government to provide a protocol for identification. In Sweden they already done this by offloading it to banks, which can be seen

You do not need it to be the government to provide a protocol for identification. In Sweden they already done this by offloading it to banks, which can be seen as a benefit or drawback based on who you ask. Personally I would like to see something like letsencrypt to take the role of central identification authority, with multiple open protocols available to prove identification. Neither governments or banks should be the single source for identity. Trust is a hard problem to solve with technology, and neither government nor for-profit organizations tend to be very good at it.