Doesn't it reset your credit history? (Which you reluctantly want if you were the victim of identity theft, but not yearly)

Which would have the benefit of forcing those systems to be updated. Agreed.

Whereas in Israel, a national ID number is treated as just that - an ID number. You put it on every single contract you sign, on most bureaucratic forms, &c, and it's used to match up individual identity rather than names. On many online services, your ID number is your username, and your password is chosen per-service.

Why is it always Italians shitting on the country without knowing what they're talking about? This is absolutely not comparable. You can't ruin someone's life if you have their codice fiscale (source: am Italian).

Most countries do have some kind of id number like that, but they always have a "password" too. In Italy authentication is done by the SPID providers[1] or with an electronic id card (or physically with an id card, driving license or passport).

You can't get a credit card and spend as much as you want in their name. You need at least a stolen or counterfeit physical document to open a bank account, or a stolen password and a SPID second factor to file a fraudulent tax return. In the US the SSN is often enough unless you opt into freezing credit.

[1] for non Italians, that's the acronym for public digital identity system; it's a SAML-based authentication mechanism used by most public websites including tax returns, pension/welfare, and healthcare