Due to rapid advancements in 5G technologies, big data and artificial intelligence, many governments have accelerated digital transformation for smart governance that harnesses data to develop various online public services and releases open data to empower civic groups and enterprises for social innovations (United Nations E-Government Development Database, 2021). Smart governance regards digital identity authentication as the stepping stone for releasing aggregated open data, analyzing big data, and providing authorized access to personal data (AccessNow,2018). Electronic identification cards (Eid) allow citizens to authenticate digital identity to information systems. To date, over 70 countries have utilized national eID cards with estimated 3.6 billion users by 2021 (Acuity Market Intelligence, 2021).Although eIDs are increasingly used for digital identity verification, their risks in privacy, information disclosure and cybersecurity inhibit early adoption (AccessNow,2018).Socio-technical subsystem theory is widely used to examine the multifaceted developmental trajectories of emerging technologies shaped by forces of stakeholders in technological, industry/market, and government/policy subsystems (Lin et al.,2016). The approach is also applied in designing and delivering e-government infrastructure and services to meet public needs (Damodaran et al., 2005) by taking into account of values and policies, institutional and social factors (Maxwell &Dawes, 2009). When establishing national e-government systems, it is advised to balance competing interests, improve privacy and security, and consolidate strengths of the public and private sectors (Castro, 2011). To improve e-democracy and digital inclusion, Damodaran et al. (2005) suggest a sociotechnical system approach in which stakeholders and citizens engage with IT professionals and providers to identify e-government needs, co-create decisions and achieve shared goals during the developmental process. As the high failure rate of large-scale information system projects is often resulted from neglecting social environments, public participation is pinpointed as a key aspect for successful rollout. E-government strategies have to balance service improvement, economic development, and democratic participation (Khan et al., 2011). With political consensus for ICT-focus digital transformation, the Estonian e-government infrastructure was built upon a development-driven national policy to implement the data infrastructure X-Road and a compulsory national digitaloid (Kattel & Mergel, 2019). When Estonian citizens access to services on the centralized platform, they can control ways of personal data being used. Estonia, Germany and Japan have eID laws to regulate related issues (Li & Liu, 2021). In 2020, Taiwan government launched the five-year “Digital Nation and Innovative Economic Development Program.” Smart governance is the core mission of Digital Nation that promotes optimal data innovations (e.g., big data analysis, open data release, personal data use). Regarding eID as a smart governance case study, this study takes the socio-technical system approach to examine stakeholder relationships and driving forces shaping the implementation of My Data digital infrastructure with compulsory eIDs in Taiwan. To analyze the complex socio-technical subsystems (technology, government/policy, and society/civic groups), we used a snowball sampling to recruit 12 expert interviewees (e.g., digital government officials and ICT, data, and legal experts). Experts’ interview data were triangulated with document analysis (e.g., market reports, while papers and news) for holistic investigation. To achieve Digital Nation, Ministry of Interior (MOI) pushed compulsory national eIDs for Taiwanese digital identity authentication in 2020, regardless of decade-long debates over digital ID issues. My Data platform, a digital infrastructure linking personal data with T-Road governmental intranet, was put on trial in July2020, which allowed citizens to authorize personal data access to 31 public services. Although the government regarded eIDs as the key to verify digital identity and authorize personal data access for My Data services, civic groups felt concerned about the high risks in data privacy and cyber security. Several surveys reveal low support of the implementation schedule even if the majority agreed with launching eIDs in a long run. Human right NGOs, scholars and lawyers protested the hasty national eIDimplementation due to violating personal data protection and cybersecurity loopholes. In July 2020, they suited against MOI’s compulsory launch as violating the Constitution, and urged to postpone the rollout. After local governments refused to participate in eID trials due to social pressure, the Legislative Yuan froze the allocated budget. In early 2021 the Executive Yuan was forced to suspend eID implementation. As of November 2021, eID launch keeps postponed until its special law is enacted. Meanwhile, Ministry of Digital Development will be set up in 2022 to oversee digital privacy issues such as eID. Citizen supervision continued to monitor law amendment and government restructure during digital transformation. Based on socio-technical system analyses, the complicated eID implementation in Taiwan is technology ready with the government/policy push, but the even stronger pull power from civic/social subsystem put the implementation on hold. The compulsory nationwide rollout plan of eIDs with My Data is regarded a government top-down initiative to pursue Digital Nation. Due to awakening personal data right sand increasing threats of cyberattacks and information warfare, various civic groups have raised concerns about privacy invasion, information security, and even mass surveillance. Lack of cross-party support and public consensus, this smart governance project has been postponed since mid-2020. Like many large-scale information system cases, the implementation obstacles occur when placing much emphasis on the technical but neglecting the social (e.g., stakeholder engagement during the developmental process). Pushing forward digital transformation, the government has spent billions of dollars on hardware and software of eID and My data to improve technical superiority and meet international standards. The government explicated that eID was a long-planned legitimate policy with scrutinized technical checkups and stakeholder discussions (e.g., civic groups and ICT experts). On the contrary, the public criticized that lack of civic participation led to the in transparent process of design, bidding, and system construction. The unexpected disputes in the initial launch plan forced the government to reopen dialogues to ease public doubts but postponed implementation continued. In sum, eID with My data system, in line with Digital Nation, will be likely launched in Taiwan after solving legal and restructure problems. The socio-technical system approach is useful for developing smart governance system/services to meet public needs with consensus through stakeholder engagement, civic participation and transparent communication.