As another poster mentioned, the problem is that both progressive and conservative constituencies are strongly against meaningful national identity for different reasons, some of which are insane.
It’s a policy problem that won’t be solved in our lifetime. Our best bet long term is for states to issue mobile credentials, but even that is problematic because it will disenfranchise people.
I 100% agree. Problem is, the federal government (and the state governments and to a large extent big chunks of the citizenry) are fundamentally opposed to the issuance of a non-passport general citizen's ID and/or number. Those opposed to it don't have any good solution to "how to protect information the government keeps about you" either, so it's no good asking them.
Devising an actual public system for identity verification when you're being told the government cannot identify people is ... challenging.
I wonder if this mightn't change with states increasingly requiring voter ID.
After all, it'd be pretty dumb to on one hand mandate that every voter have government-issued ID, and on the other to oppose it.
It's not dumb, it's just evil.
Private companies have been part of the government discharging its responsibilities since first days of the Republic. You'd probably be shocked when you learn who does credit monitoring after government servers get hacked, by the way.
By your logic the government couldn't use cloud computing (run by a private company), couldn't use computer hardware even if they wanted to run a private cloud (hardware is built by private companies).
This is a call to enhance Login.gov’s identity abilities, and US government citizen identity management in general. Login.gov (and perhaps USPS for in person proofing) should be funded to do this, not ID.me. Higher level, this is about building strong public goods and defending them.