The UK Government's "Special Envoy for Returns", Lord Triesman, in charge of deporting people from the UK, hopes to improve the system by working on the "scientific and technical identification of nationality". Like the article says, where did we hear that before? The idea seems to arise from the supposed need to issue documents to paperless people who you think might be lying about where they're from.

Related

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/22/triesman_scientific_id/