Given the overwhelmingly negative reaction to disabling device encryption on its Fire tablets, it should come as no surprise that Amazon has quickly changed its tune.
Right in the middle of the giant encryption fight between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Apple, Amazon recently (and somewhat quietly) made a decision to remove device encryption for its Fire OS-based devices: the Kindle Fire, Fire Phone, and Amazon Fire HD, to name a few.
The recent encryption flip-flops from Amazon aren't directly related to the recent legal row Apple is engaged in with the Federal Bureau of Investigation over the iPhone.
An Amazon spokeswoman said Saturday that a full encryption option will be offered in a Fire software update coming this spring.
"In the fall when we released Fire OS 5, we removed some enterprise features that we found customers weren't using". But the timing for Amazon's decision could not have been worse. We can't help but think that most Fire device owners don't even know their devices can be encrypted.
However, if you were expecting an immediate solution, you're out of luck, as the encryption update won't arrive for at least a couple of weeks. Encryption on Fire tablets wasn't on by default, like it is on iPhones, but it still provides a valuable security measure.
Natasha Lomas from TechCrunch explains the fact that removing the device encryption would imply that law enforcement agencies, as well as other authorities, could gain access to a person's private information directly from their device.
This can now put several users at risk who use the Fire OS tablets produced by Amazon as hackers will no longer need to break through a wall of secure encryption as they can easily lay their hands on data whenever they want and with quite an ease.
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