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| The new British passport design is unveiled at Shakespeare's Globe theatre in London |
Officials say it will be the 'most secure passport ever issued in the UK' and contains innovative features to make it more difficult for fraudsters to forge copies.
These include printing using UV and infrared light, inks and watermarks and using a single sheet of paper for the personal details page adjoined to the back cover to prevent it being tampered with.
But the Passport Office was hit by accusations of sexism as the passport features FIVE men and only The seven men featured are:
John Constable, the painter of the Hay Wain
John Harrison, the inventor of the marine timekeeper
Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect
Charles Babbage, the inventor of the computer
William Shakespeare, the playwright, who appears in a new high-security watermark
Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor, the sculptors
The two women featured are:
Elisabeth Scott, the architect
Ada Lovelace, the early computer programmer
But Mark Thomson, director general of the Passport Office, defended the design.
He said: "It wasn't something where we said let's set out to only have two women.
"In trying to celebrate the UK's creativity we tried to get a range of locations and things around the country to celebrate our triumphs over the years, so there we are."
Asked about the omission of female icons such as Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters, he said: "Whenever we do these things there is always someone who wants their favourite rock band or icon in the book.
"We've got 16 pages, a very finite space. We like to feel we've got a good representative view celebrating some real icons of the UK- Shakespeare, Constable and of course Elisabeth Scott herself."
The new passport also depicts scenes from famous landmarks including the London Underground, the Angel of the North, the Titanic Belfast and the Globe Theatre.
It will be rolled out in a phased approach with the first due to be in circulation from December 2015.
Mirror UK
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