Ubiquity of Smartphones make government overreach too easy. Ah, you were protesting the bank employees stealing your money? You have Covid. Lockdown. (as in China). Ah you were protesting medical mandates? The identity is linked to your location where ever you take it with you.

A digital id could make uploading our analog ids a thing of the past. Sign a message with a private key, and you log in to a government site and you' re authenticated as if you did a KYC procedure and there is no more concern of leaked copies of my documents being misused. As long as the private key comes from us and we can secure this private key which are problematic. Taking such a token everywhere you go seems idiotic. I'd keep it at home in a safe rather on a primary phone I take around.

There market forces are absent. So, you don't have a choice of which program you can use for this. That's bad. Various bitcoin wallets allow for signing random text messages. I am not sure about mobile bitcoin wallets but I am sure there are a few. It should be an open protocol and an open market.