Last year when Google launched Android Lollipop 5.0, Google wanted to make the full disk encryption mandatory, but due to some reasons the idea didn’t work.
But this time with the launch of Android 6.0 Marshmallow Google is hoping the things will go in its favour this time. Yes, Google is going to make the Full Disk Encryption mandatory by default for the devices that will be released with the latest Android Marshmallow 6.0 or higher version.
In its new version of the Android Compatibility Definition Document, Google wrote “For device implementations supporting full-disk encryption and with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) crypto performance above 50MiB/sec, the full-disk encryption MUST be enabled by default at the time the user has completed the out-of-box setup experience.”
Google’s Full Disk Encryption
Encryption is considered as one of the best way for securing the data from others. Google’s Full Disk encryption provides you the facility to encrypt your data on an Android phone with an encryption key, once the disk is encrypted all your data will be automatically encrypted even before the data is written on the disk.
The data is automatically decrypted when an application calls for the data, all you need to do is enter the correct key. The Full Disk Encryption is done with a Kernel feature that directly interacts with the block layer of the storage of the device. This Kernel feature is available in Android since Android 3.0 Honeycomb.
So, Android Marshmallow 6.0 is bringing us some big improvements in the working of Full Disk Encryption.
See Also: Facebook’s New Notification Feature: Facebook will now Notify you if Government is Spying on you.
Problems with Full Disk Encryption
You must have heard about the low device performance of Nexus 6 when Google tried to make Full Disk Encryption mandatory by default last year. This is the only problem when we talk about implementing the Full Disk Encryption by default. It directly effects the performance of the device. Because when you try to encrypt of decrypt the data on the disk the I/O speed vacillate.
The other minor problem with Full Disk Encryption is that once you forget the decryption key, you don’t have any other way except resetting your phone that will wipe all your data.
It may be a good step by Google to enable Full Disk Encryption by default, many of us find it useful. It keeps our data protected from the wrong hands, even it protects the data from snoopers and Government Agencies. But it may not be very useful for some, the traditional screen lock screen is enough for them. They don’t have any fear of government agencies snooping into their data.
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