Presumably a service would only allow one (or a few) accounts per actual person. The end user will still need some amount of security. I had in mind some challenge-response mechanism, like:

  Person signs government ID number with public key, presents it to authority
  Authority signs public key and asserts it belongs to a real human
  Service presents random number at signup time
  Person signs the random number with the same public key, and presents the key signed by the authority