At least in many EU countries, they are adapting. I'm a fairly happy user of Irish myGovID (OIDC) and ROS (X509 "sign this message with your private key" challenge), and Polish Profil Zaufany (I think OIDC or CAS?).
The issues I see are:
- Each country has its own system, some documented, some not so much, some use OIDC, some SAML, some something more obscure.
- As an individual who moved countries, you end up with multiple accounts.
- As a developer you cannot easily register your own OIDC app. Send an email to some ministry and hope for the best. If you aren't part of government yourself, you may be out of luck.
But the reality is that virtually every online identity is tied to a real identity, just with layers of obscurity added.
This hacker news was created with anonymous accounts but it still links back to my real one.
Just imagine if those accounts all had had direct and firm ties to RL identity stored with them.
If it wasn't a problem the SSN system wouldn't be used in unintended ways.
Government has failed to adapt with modern times and technology and has failed to provide modern and secure identification and authentication services for citizens.
I log in with my bank credentials to access my government tax account, talk about a total failure to do your job from the people still using SIN as an important piece of identity for some of the most important aspects of life.
This is a solvable problem. Governments can adapt and use modern technology to provide identity and authentication services, but they do not.
In my opinion this is a failure to be responsible for core government services, and I can only speculate why.