Although Google has not yet provided details through an official statement, a company spokesperson told the Washington Post that they plan to make data encryption a default setting in Android L , the operating system that will be released next month.
“For the past three years, Android has offered encryption, and the keys are stored on the device, so the data can’t be shared with law enforcement,” GoogleNiki Christoff told the Washington Post. “In the next release of Android, encryption will be enabled by default so you won’t even have to think about turning it on.”
Recall that encryption has been present on some Android since 2011, but users had to enable the feature manually.
As we first reported yesterday, Apple's mobile operating system iOS 8, which was released on Wednesday, also brings new automatic encryption methods that prevent Apple from accessing user data.
The encryption methods adopted by Apple – and now Google – make it much more difficult for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to access smartphone data without the owner's password, even if they have a court warrant to do so.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an interview with PBS that “if the government calls Apple to provide data,” “we no longer have the key. The door is closed.”
That's the good news. Of course we can't know the deals that are being made under the table. Until the next Snowden comes along.
