The fact that this information has been requested for years does not mean that there isn’t an agenda behind doubling down and possibly mandating the provision of such information, now.
Presumably as a society were are moving in the direction of reducing explicit, invasive requests for unnecessary personal information, not increasing them (even though we all voluntarily give up our private info on the internet, on the reg).
For instance, almost all my doctors and other similar type appointments used to ask for my SS number (using it as part of their filing system). That’s a hard no. And they rarely ask, now.