Much like the current “View Once” feature, the new functionality could one day be useful for sending sensitive information that you don’t want a recipient to have ongoing access to, like a password or credit card details. In fact, when WhatsApp announced the launch of View Once for photos and videos, it used the example of someone sending a photo of their Wi-Fi login details as a case where it might be useful. It’s not hard to imagine this same information being sent in the form of a

WhatsApp already offers a disappearing messages feature which allows you to set every message sent in a chat to disappear after a set period of time. But the new “View Once” feature would only apply to a specific message rather than a whole conversation, and would have a message disappear after it’s been viewed, rather than after a set period of time.

As it stands, WABetaInfo reports that the feature may one day be accessible via a button in the app that has the traditional send message logo on it combined with a padlock. But since the feature is in-development, and currently isn’t even available to beta testers, this design may change before it’s officially released.

WhatsApp currently prevents recipients from being able to screenshot a piece of view once media if they’re using the most recent version of its app, but it’s unclear whether this same protection will be extended to text messages.

A spokesperson for WhatsApp declined to comment on WABetaInfo’s report on the upcoming feature, so it’s unclear when, or even if, it might be officially available.