Update: It was added earlier in Android 2.3.4. You may alternatively want to check out third party encryption apps. I'm not 100% about that but I think encryption was added in Android 3.0.
Encrypt your Android PhoneĪ few requirements have to be met before you can go ahead and encrypt the data on your phone: You need to encrypt the data on the phone to make sure that the data can't be dumped by a third party. While it may keep out people who got hold of your phone in first place, it may not protect the actual data on the phone's storage device. Setting a lock screen password is however just one of the steps that you should undertake to protect your phone from unauthorized access. If the phone is turned on though, an attacker can access all of the data stored on the phone without having to enter a single password or PIN first.
Phones by default are only protected by the PIN, which may protect the phone just fine if it is not turned on. One of the first things that I decided to do of after getting my new Samsung Galaxy Note 2 smartphone was to protect the data stored on the phone's memory space from unauthorized access.