The Manhattan district attorney’s office made a bold claim in a recent report that sparked another fire in the ongoing encryption debate.

The report (about smartphone encryption in general, not Android in particular) details how authorities could gain entry to one’s Android smartphone by compelling to comply with a court order:

“ can reset the passcodes when served with a search warrant an order instructing them to assist law enforcement to extract data from the device. This process can be done by remotely allows forensic examiners to view the contents of a device.”

Technically, can be forced to comply with such orders, though it only can do so with devices that aren’t encrypted. so, is unable to remotely read data all the data stored solely on your device like text messages or photos that are only saved locally: authorities would need to have the phone in h in order to view such content. In other words: can’t remotely access all the contents of your phone for the government, but it can unlock your phone so that the law enforcement agency can access that data itself. 

still can, however, be forced to turn over Gmail or other account data if compelled by a court (whether your phone is encrypted or not).

This report gained a lot of traction because it applies to the vast majority of Android phones out there: only started requiring encryption with Android 6.0 Marshmallow (the initial plan was to do this with llipop, but technical issues got in the way). According to the Android Developers Dashboard, Marshmallow is only on .3 percent of devices. A few devices with Android 5.0 llipop ship with encryption enabled, while many others do not.

Apple made full disk encryption stard in iOS 8, but the feature is far more widespread on iones than Android phones, since Apple makes all the hardware controls software updates.

Fortunately, you can turn encryption on, even if you have an older device that’s running KitKat. Encryption is a good practice because eventually you’ll trade-in or sell off your phone, it makes it nearly impossible for someone else to access any remnants of your data still on the device.

y this matters: Understing such distinctions in how encryption works what you can do to secure your device are important to avoid the common fear, uncertainty, doubt that plagues this debate. The bottom line is if device encryption reliable security updates are important, get a Nexus device. To make the choice easier the Nexus 6/a> is one of the best Android phones out there, so you get a great phone the latest security features.