Firing Up Encryption

Dave Smith with Tech Insider reports that March 5 that Amazon has reversed its decision to remove encryption from the latest Kindle Fire OS update. 

Smith Explains, "Amazon issued the following statement to Tech Insider on Saturday morning: 'We will return the option for full disk encryption with a Fire OS update coming this spring,' the company said."

Apparently the latest OS update removed encryption in December. Amazon claimed that device encryption were among the "enterprise features that we found customers weren't using." The company has not provided any reason why it is re-offering encryption, but likely factors include customer discontent in the wake of the revelation that Fires wren't encrypted and new awareness about encryption in light of the FBI/Apple fight over breaking into an iPhone.

ReadersFirst is happy to hear that Amazon has changed its mind. Our experience suggests that library eBook readers tend to be proud of what they read and are more likely to share their lists on social media than to hide anything.  Still, we wish to hold any device connected with library eBooks--and Kindle Fires often are employed for this purpose--to the highest possible standards of user privacy.  

Michael @ St Mary's County Library