The news comes as other social media and messaging giants such as TikTok, Facebook and Instagram roll out similar features.

With the ‘view once’ feature, after the recipient opens a video or image for the first time, it’s then deleted, without saving it to a phone.

WhatsApp said the feature was aimed at “giving users even more control over their privacy”.

However, there are concerns that the feature could be used to propagate pernicious online messaging practices.

Child protection advocates have expressed concern that auto-vanishing messages could help cover up evidence of child sexual abuse.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) is already at odds with WhatsApp’s parent company Facebook over the use of encrypted messaging.

Current encryption means police cannot see the messages “in transit”– only the sender and receiver can. The new ‘view once’ feature would mean devices seized in police raids would no longer contain evidence, weakening prosecution cases.

“This view once feature could put children at even greater risk by giving offenders another tool to avoid detection and erase evidence, when efforts to combat child sexual abuse are already hindered by end-to-end encryption,” said Alison Trew, the charity’s senior online safety officer.

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Conversely, the idea behind ‘view once’ is that it has practical applications as an everyday privacy tool – that’s certainly how WhatsApp are marketing it.

The company says the tool should be used for unimportant everyday tasks such as asking a partner how they look in new clothes or sending someone a password.

“Not everything we share needs to become a permanent digital record,” it said.

“On many phones, simply taking a photo means it will take up space in your camera roll forever.”

The feature will be rolled out to “everyone starting this week”.

Users will know a message is ‘view once’ because the preview will be hidden and a large “1” icon displayed instead.

The new system is hardly airtight though, with workarounds available much like on Snapchat. For example – it is possible for a user to take a screenshot or screen recording of the message when it is first opened – or to film one screen with another camera.

WhatsApp already dipped its toes into view once content when it introduced a disappearing-messages function back in November.

This feature erases text messages for both the sender and recipient after seven days – and is one of the areas of concern for a legal challenge to the UK government.

UK law says information relating to “substantive discussions or decisions” need to be kept on record for the historical archive.

Several members of government are known to use WhatsApp and similar app Signal frequently, leading one campaigning law firm to accuse political leaders of “government by text”.

The Cabinet Office has said “appropriate arrangements” are already in place to ensure official communications are retained in line with the law.