Well, it does use numbers and they are permanent once issued. The difference is what you call those numbers, how you issue them and what is the UX around them.

Well, it does use numbers and they are permanent once issued. The difference is what you call those numbers, how you issue them and what is the UX around them. Don't want to have a federal id? Sure, here is your federated id prefixed with TX-, with all the PII stored in a datacenter in your state. Don't want to have another id issued? Sure, type in the number of your driver license issued when you were 16 years old. Don't like numbers at all? Okey, type in your baptism name, dob and the name of the church or apply through a snail mail. It's not like Europe has a pan-european id issuing authority or a single unique number to identify a person through all of the databases on a continent. Even if did, some people would still have another identity number in US to open an account there.