What Is TigerText, The App At The Center Of The Latest Salvo In the NA/CBS Legal Battle?

The success of Snapchat inspired a whole range of ephemeral, now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t apps for consumers concerned about protecting their privacy.

These self-destructing messaging apps — Frankly, Blink, Wickr and Confide — are less well known than Snapchat, but offer features such as encrypted messages, disappearing photos and the like.

TigerText falls into this broad category of secure messaging apps, which allows users to share encrypted messages that automatically delete after a set period of time, retract “errant” messages, remove all traces from a conversation, share documents.

It’s designed to work across large organizations, though the company positions its product (now referred to as TigerConnect) for healthcare professionals for whom patient confidentiality is not only desirable — but mandated by federal law.

Hollywood became interested in this technology after the embarrassing disclosures that came in the aftermath of the 2014 Sony Pictures Entertainment cyberattack, which divulged private conversations and confidential business terms.

Now, it’s at the heart of the ongoing legal battle between CBS and its controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone’s National Amusements. CBS CEO Leslie Moonves and COO Joe Ianniello and others are accused of using the self-destructing messaging app TigerText to communicate and for “the systematic deletion of highly relevant documents…over a two year period.”