Headed to Mobile World Congress? Pick up the official Windows Phone NFC Badge app.

For those in the media with Windows Phones or the few of you industry folks who are headed to the massive Mobile World Congress in Barcelona at the end of the month, you’ll want to grab the new official Windows Phone 8 NFC Badge App.

The GSMA Press Office just sent out an email for Android and Windows Phone users on how to get the app and enable the pass features. Starting last year, physical badges for MWC had an NFC chip in them and this year they’re going a step further by using NFC-enabled apps. The pass is necessary to get in to the tightly secured event which attracts nearly 60,000 attendees over a few days.

With the NFC app, you’ll be able to

Validate your badge against Photo ID one time only, after which you may enter the event without further ID checks
Pass through dedicated NFC Badge entrance lanes at the North and South Entrances

The app is easy enough to use. Simply download and enter your registration information, then upload a nice “Passport quality” photo. The rest of the validation will have to wait until you arrive on scene and pick up your physical badge:

Once registered (and in receipt of your Final Confirmation) download the Android 4 or Windows Phone 8 (WP8) NFC Badge app. The NFC Badge app is also embedded in the Android version of the GSMA app
Log into the app using the same username (email) and password you used to create your GSMA Staff registration account
Upload a passport quality photo of yourself to your NFC Badge
You will be asked to show your photo ID upon collection of your physical badge, to validate your photo in the app and to confirm your identity
Once your photo is validated, you may use any of the NFC Badge access lanes at the venue and enter the event without having to repeatedly show photo ID
The application will show the status of your badge as red, amber or green - with green meaning fully validated and OK to use without your ID document.
Please note that the NFC Badge is only valid with a physical badge

Kind of a neat thing to have and we’re sure to make use of it. It’s also nice because this is the first time the GSMA has made an official Windows Phone app of any kind for Mobile World Congress. Here’s hoping that an official event app with maps is also forthcoming.

You can pick up NFC Badge (GSMA) here at the Windows Phone Store.

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Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and wearable tech. He has reviewed laptops for over 10 years and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, Arm64 processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, performed polysomnographs in NYC, and was a motion-picture operator for 17 years.