Cyber Dust is an app that lets users send text messages without leaving a digital fingerprint. All texts “self destruct” within 30 seconds, after which they are not stored anywhere — including on Cyber Dust’s servers. Also, Cyber Dust notifies you if someone takes a screenshot of one of your Cyber Dust texts.

Mark Cuban is behind Cyber Dust. In a recent Forbes article, he explained that the idea came from his own experience of having the SEC use his text messages in its insider-trading action against him: “That the phone companies and your text recipients own your texts and even the most innocent text can take on a whole new context. I wanted to have a means of communication that is analogous to face to face – where you can speak openly and honestly. That is why we created Cyber Dust.”

Similar technology is being developed for emails. For example, The Atlantic recently wrote about Pluto Mail, which includes features that allow the sender to set an email to expire after a set time. After that, the recipient can no longer view the email.

As Cuban notes, emails and texts create a digital record that can last forever. When your employees (or others, like consultants or vendors) send emails and text messages that contain your proprietary information, there is a risk of disclosure. As more companies use bring-your-own-device policies, those companies lose even more control of information sent via text and email.

I’ve been thinking of how to use this technology to minimize unwanted disclosure. For example, a company could require that all work-related text messages be sent via Cyber Dust. Emails are a bit more complicated, since there is often a need to preserve emails for later use. But a company could require that all emails containing proprietary information, or attaching certain proprietary documents, be sent with a scheduled expiration date.

In the end,  these policies would only be effective if there’s a way to monitor compliance. Otherwise, it’s not worth the effort. Also, these policies likely would not deter someone who is sending the information with malicious intent, such as an employee who knows he will be leaving to work for a competitor. UPDATE: In fact, such a person could use this technology to cover his tracks.

But it’s worth exploring how to use new technology like Cyber Dust to help bolster efforts to protect proprietary information.