To put it into perspective, the USA is making the draft system automatic from the end of this year and there’s opposition to it since the current system is that the individual is registered via the Selective Service System (it’s put into the database when one gets a driver’s license for example). From their case, the American government’s argument is: “it saves money from military recruitment campaigns” which is a pile of horse shit.
I mean, there are European countries where the draft is normal and expected for men over 18 (Austria, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Greece, Cyprus & Croatia) including both Norway & Switzerland (despite them NOT being EU members at all). And yes: Ukraine has the draft, since men ages from 18-60 cannot leave the country due to them being made to stay behind on fending off against Russia.
But there are also European countries where the draft is non-existent, remains dormant or abolished: France, Germany, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Belgium, Netherlands, Albania, Ireland or the United Kingdom. However, what would happen if your country’s government suddenly enacts an automatic register for conscription?
As in, your country’s government refers to a name list of guys who possess EU identity cards, driver’s licenses or passports verifying if they’re over 18 by putting their name on a database. Like this: your name refered from your EU identity card now put into a conscription register meaning you can be called up at any time when the circumstances deem it necessary, like all of that done behind everyone’s back.
So currently, the draft system is not legally provisioned for in the US. It would require a law to be passed to reinstate a draft.
Right now there is just a list system for if that were to happen. This change is just making it so people are automatically put in to that list system, as supposed to having to manually do it them selves, arguably a good thing since it was already mandatory. Not registering for the selective service is a federal crime, and a lot of people have failed to register because they don’t know or simply forgot to.
It would probably be better to remove the selective service system all together, make it harder to reinstate a draft in the future. But if it is going to stick around and continue to be mandatory, it’s better it be an automatic system.
In general, there are basically no federal level “lists of all citizens”. The closest would be social security (national pension fund and elderly health insurance system) but even that doesn’t really work for identifying people or tracking them. it’s something people in the US have been very paranoid about for a long time.