Problem really is that things like SSN or ID numbers should have never been treated as more as just one possible semi-public unique identifier. Never anything to be used in identifying a person for a contract.

Sometimes it can happen that the honest company gets a visit from the dedicated contract crony, with the offer to do the real work for like 50% of the contract value. At least the taxpayers get something usable - if that 50% amounts to something usable.

I'm sure it's obvious to anyone living in a corrupt/oppressive regime, but in case it's not obvious to everyone.

Corruption and oppression are signaling and coordination problems. The illegitimate sovereign is exploiting informational assymmetry: they know your neighbors are just as angry as you, they know it because all the walls have ears.

They need to prevent you and your neighbors all knowing it at the same time. Your best play is to find some signal, something difficult to censure, hard for the goons to pick out in a crowd but legible to your neighbors. If you all knew that the first guy to shove back when the cop shoves you is going to be followed by a swarm of guys? Very easy to find the first guy in that case.

This is why shit like extremely high gas prices scares the shit out of illegitimate sovereigns: they're the ones posting pure data about why everyone should be that angry right now.

Many many many contracts and systems refuse to use EU funds exactly because of this - they become traceable.