I would go one step further, saying that proper verification is prone to fraud because of failure in government (in the US; not sure about other countries). It still baffles me that identification typically comes down to two things: social security card and driver's license, and both are managed by agencies whose primary objective is not identification. IMHO, it's time for a single agency at either the fed or state level that's in charge of just identification. That's it. Fund that agency and let them do it properly. However, inevitably someone will scream "Big Brother!", and we'll end up back where we started, with this Rube Goldberg system that basically leaves individuals to fend for themselves.
I'll go yet another step further, and say that the main opposition to having a better technical system of government identification is because we're lacking a comprehensive privacy law akin to the GDPR. As it stands if the government started say issuing smart cards for identify verification, then every business would gradually force their customers to identify themselves, for helping the commercial surveillance industry track everything they do. This is the current dynamic with mobile apps, phone numbers, and existing static identifiers, and it's only held back because one can feign not having them and/or being worried about giving out that info. Whereas with actually secure technicals, that friction basically disappears. And so the only way to prevent this dynamic (and make it so better identification isn't itself a security vulnerability) is by gaining the legal right to inspect/audit/reject the collection, use, and storage of such information in the first place.
It feels like the people who literally believe this as an actual political concern is a vanishingly small contingent, especially given that the ship has already sailed with SSNs and the like, making this more of a partisan talking point strawman. Of course I do respect that the relevant political party has made their whole platform one of stirring up such tempests in teapots instead of focusing on substantive policy. But still regardless of the possible superstitious narratives that objections may end up taking, the best way to eliminate objections is to address the actual practical concerns. And that is chiefly the myriad of ways in which existing identifiers are being abused.
Digital identification can be done correctly, i.e. give business one time pseudonym maybe with one time email pseudonym. Then businesses won't ask for such identification :)
Or it can require ATM, which is not frictionless.
Businesses already ask for phone numbers anyway. Can it become worse?
Phone numbers are bad, but of course it could be worse. Phone numbers have both escape hatches (VOIP, shared number burner services, or your own psuedonymous SIM + device ID), and friction (people are wary of businesses spamming them).
Pseudonyms don't work for the topic under discussion, issuing credit. And for the general case, since credit issuers would be able to require you to do a non-psuedonym identification, then any other entity can require this as well, unless there were a privacy law.
