Then why is it only EU countries and authoritarian governments that do it?

> They need to know your address for a lot of things.

And when those things come up, they can ask your address. But requiring people to register in general is a step too far.

>> And when those things come up, they can ask your address.

How would they do that if they don't have your address? For example: a decent amount of elderly don't use the internet, how would they be contacted?

If you need to deal with taxes, you submit your address to the tax agency.

If you need to deal with license stuff, you deal with the equivalent of the DMV.

And so on.

There's no need to just file your address with the government 'in general'.

> a decent amount of elderly don't use the internet, how would they be contacted?

Internet is kind of irrelevant. Most government agencies don't use the internet to contact people unless they specifically opt in and the agency offers that.

They would use your last known address, or wait for you to contact them.

I need to file taxes but no one sends me a reminder. My town asks me to verify my address once a year but nothing (other than possibly being eventually removed from voting rolls) happens if I don't. Driver's license and registration are supposed to be your current address but again I'm not sure anything especially happens if they aren't. No one sends me anything to remind me to get my inspection updated.

So I have a supposedly current address on file with various government agencies but AFAIK there is absolutely no rule that, if I pick up and move I have to tell anyone. I do need to file taxes correctly although, as I wrote elsewhere, if I don't have a permanent address that's simultaneously perfectly legal and something of an edge case.