They won't make digital ID mandatory yet; the point is to make it as inconvenient as possible not to have a digital ID. It's likely you won't be able to do your taxes online without signing up for it. Then you won't be able to receive certain government services. Businesses will be able to use it, starting with banks.[1] It's just about making it more and more inconvenient until you're forced to use it because some service you can't do without requires it.<p>The Netherlands has some respect for digital privacy. In Australia, it won't be hard for the Americans to access this data. The point of data privacy isn't just about not giving up information. If a particular agency needs a piece of data, you don't want every other government agency to have access to it. A digital ID makes it convenient to aggregate everything.<p>Australia has tried this many times. They even satirized it in the TV Show "Utopia" (Episode "Mission Creeps")<p>[1] <a href="https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/banks-auspost-win-early-entry-to-digital-id-scheme-in-senate-deal-20240324-p5fet9" rel="nofollow">https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/banks-auspost-win-early...</a>