Amazon brings encryption back to Fire OS

Amazon is going back on its previous decision to remove the data encryption capability from its Fire OS. The online department store is reversing the decision after many complaints arose about the removal of the encryption option.

An Amazon spokesperson told Engadget that an update is expected to be released soon that will bring full disk encryption back to Fire OS, the Android-based mobile operating system Amazon uses for some of its mobile devices. The online department store states that the update should come in the spring, but did not give details about the exact release date.

With the release of an update, Amazon is reversing an earlier decision to remove the encryption option from Fire OS. That was already done last September, but was only discovered last week when older Amazon devices got a software update and the data had to be decrypted. This subsequently caused a lot of criticism from users. Amazon said in a response that it had removed the encryption option because it would mainly be a business feature and it would hardly be used.