Digify lets you read secret documents that self-destruct on your mobile device

Do you remember the old Mission Impossible show on TV, where a tape-recorded message self-destructs? Digify has created the modern version of that.

The Singapore-based company provides cloud-based secure documents that are strictly controlled. Digify enables customers to secure, capture, and preserve secret information, said Augustine Lim, the managing director of Digify.

“When you finish reading it, the document disappears from your machine,” Lim said while speaking at a reception at MobileBeat 2013. “We have advanced layered defenses and encryption, and it is very secure.”

The Digify document won’t let you take a screenshot of it. Lim showed a demo where he tried to take a screenshot of it, much like a message from the popular Snapchat app. A person can decrypt a message and read it, but they can’t forward that message to someone else.

“How do we stop this?” he asked. “Well, Mission Impossible would have a device that blows up. That’s not practical. You don’t need to blow up the device.”

Lim spent eight years in the Singapore government. Customers include Singapore’s security agency (the Internal Security Department), the Ministry of Home Affairs, Fuji Xerox, the Economic Development Board of Singapore, and others. The company is targeting anyone with secrets. In the age of Wikileaks, Lim believes his product will be very useful.

The company has nine employees and it has raised $1 million in seed money from Red Dot Ventures and SPRING Singapore. He spoke at an event sponsored by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore. Rivals include Fixmo. Digify is seeking $5 million in funding.

“We’ll use more money to accelerate our product development,” Lim said.