The Government has unveiled the first identity cards, which will initially be issued to foreign nationals from November.

The cards will show the holder's photograph, name, date of birth, nationality and immigration status. A secure electronic chip will also hold biometric data, including fingerprints, and a digital facial image, ensuring that the cards can’t be used by other people if they are lost or stolen.

The Government said the cards would be used as a replacement to “old-fashioned paper documents and make it easier for employers and sponsors to check entitlement to work and study”.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said: "ID cards will help protect against identity fraud, illegal working, reduce the use of multiple identities in organised crime and terrorism, crack down on those trying to abuse positions of trust and make it easier for people to prove they are who they say they are.”

The UK Border Agency will begin issuing the biometric cards to the two categories of foreign nationals who officials say are most likely to abuse immigration rules – students and those on a marriage or civil partnership visa. They will have to apply for cards from 25 November.

Within three years all foreign nationals applying to enter or remain in the UK will also be required to have a card. It is expected that around nine in 10 foreign nationals in Britain will have cards by 2015.

The scheme was welcomed by the Association of Colleges (AoC), which agreed that the scheme could “assist in the reduction of identity fraud".

Julian Gravatt, director of funding and development at AoC, said: "Colleges welcome any measure which facilitates the recruitment of genuine students to study in the UK and the economic benefits this brings."

However, Phil Booth, head of the national No2ID campaign group, attacked the roll-out of the cards as a "softening-up " and "cynical branding" exercise.

"No doubt the Home Secretary is relieved to be able to wave a plastic card and claim it for the ID scheme, given her department has now spent over £100m pounds of public money; but this is still a cynical branding exercise," he said.

"To suggest ID cards are somehow connected to immigration policy, Jacqui Smith is deliberately engaging in populist bullying of the soft targets – anonymous individuals seeking marriage visas or education – those who have no choice but to keep quiet and comply."