Identity numbers being abused is a consequence of them being misused. And as far as I can tell, this happens more often with american SSNs than anywhere with actual national identity numbers.

All that these numbers do is uniquely identify people. They aren't private. To actually prove your identity, you present your ID, passport, or a digital signature tied to that identity number.

The abuse only happens because US courts deemed a third party liable for a lender’s error/cost cutting in attempting to verify a borrower’s identity.

You’re talking about different things. Sweden has personal identity numbers and they’re public information. It protects you from being mixed up with someone with the same name. Not from identity theft though.

Making them explicitly public is better than the US situation where they’re treated like a password - a password you can’t change if it gets disclosed, and that lots of people feel entitled to get.

In most countries you cant do anything with a single number id of a person. Except ironically the US so youre doubly so off.

Unique identifiers should be public. There shouldn’t be any leaking.

That also means they should be used simply as an identifier and not as any for of authentication or secret knowledge.

We just need untheivable unlosable numbers /i

It helps. Period.