> that you trust the government not to issue fake certificates
But we know it's not true - the government does issue fake passports, e.g. for spies, maybe for other purposes too.
> each individual only has one physical passport
Passports can be lost. In that case, the government keeps the database of revoked passports (IIRC in cases I've seen they actually track when the latest one was issued and will reject ones with earlier issue date). However, if you don't have access to that database, I don't think you have any way to distinguish between passports issued to the same person.
At that would be true for pretty much every country I imagine - I don't think any country would not allow their citizens to replace a lost passport.
People also get multiple passports for things such as traveling to countries where having a visa from one in your passport would preclude you from entering the other. Military service or diplomatic service often means you get a "black" diplomatic passport, which would have the same chip in it as any other e-passport. You can be sending one passport in to receive a visa (Russia, for instance, can take over a month), but you still need to travel so you're issued a secondary temporary passport. I'm sure there's dozens of other exceptions on why assuming every user has only one passport doesn't work out. (This is aside from the fact North Korea or China can just issue 10,000's of fake passports to hack this anyways)
people get multiple mining machines. Somw even multiple thousands. It is not necessarily about more democracy where one person has only one vote, but it is about more true decentralisation of control - as i understand it.
But we know it's not true - the government does issue fake passports, e.g. for spies, maybe for other purposes too.
> each individual only has one physical passport
Passports can be lost. In that case, the government keeps the database of revoked passports (IIRC in cases I've seen they actually track when the latest one was issued and will reject ones with earlier issue date). However, if you don't have access to that database, I don't think you have any way to distinguish between passports issued to the same person.
At that would be true for pretty much every country I imagine - I don't think any country would not allow their citizens to replace a lost passport.