New phones shipping with Android 6.0 Marshmallow software and meeting a certain performance standard must be encrypted by default. Android Police reported the change in Google's most recently Android Compatibility Definition Document, where it states:
"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."
Older devices that get upgraded to Android 6.0 in the future -- here's a running list of them so far -- have a bit of an out, according to Google, which says, "If a device implementation is already launched on an earlier Android version with full-disk encryption disabled by default, such a device cannot meet the requirement through a system software update and thus MAY be exempted."
Last year when the topic of encryption arose with the Nexus 6 -- it was encrypted by default -- there was talk of reduced device performance.
That could still be the case but it's too soon to tell until proper device testing with read / write flash storage speeds. Regardless, many would argue that personal data security is worth more than a slightly faster device.
That actually raises a question: Android typically provides more options for user choice than other mobile platforms. Will removing the choice of encrypted vs unencrypted data from the user be an issue going forward?
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