Photos: UK's ID card revealed

This is the first glimpse at what the British ID card will look like.

The design for the British cards was unveiled by Home Secretary Alan Johnson at events in London and Manchester today.

People living in Manchester will be the first UK nationals to be able to apply for one of the cards from Autumn of this year, with cards being offered to people living in the North West soon after.

ID cards will be able to be used to verify a person's identity via the cards' embedded microchip, which will store the cardholder's biographic information, their photograph and a scan of two of their fingerprints. These details can then be checked against copies of that information held in a central database called the National Identity Register (NIR).

But the scheme faces an uncertain future, as the Conservatives have pledged to scrap ID cards if the party is elected next year.

There is also doubt among MPs and academics over how many people will be willing to pay £60 to have an ID card, after Johnson announced it would never be compulsory for UK citizens to carry a card.

However critics of the scheme claim that legislation under the Identity Cards Act 2006 will allow the government to collect personal details for ID cards by the back door. Part of the act allows the government to designate an official document, such as a driving licence, so that anyone applying for the document would have their details entered onto the NIR.

The cost of providing the cards and biometric passports for UK citizens over the next 10 years will be £5bn.

Photo credit: Home Office