Amazon has quickly reversed its recent disabling of encryption on its Fire OS 5 running on Fire tablets after a public relations nightmare. It came after Amazon backed Apple in its battle with the FBI about a San Benardino shooter's locked iPhone 5s that the feds have asked the tech giant to build a backdoor for so it can access data on the mobile device.

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Amazon reported in an email to reporters on the evening of March 4, Friday that it would return full local encryption with a Fire OS update in the spring. Fire OS is an Android-based operating system that powers the tech giant's Fire tablets, Fire Phone, and Fire TV.

Earlier in the week a published notice was found that showed the latest Fire OS 5 update had removed the data encryption option on its tablet computers. Encryption was not set by default like iPhones but improved the devices' security by helping to prevent hackers and thieves from accessing local data, according to The Verge.

Amazon had claimed that customers were not using the encryption feature. It also pointed out that it had decided to remove the security measure last fall before the active case between Apple and the FBI.  

However, the move still seemed odd after the company had supported Apple's decision not to build security backdoors for its devices including iPhones and iPads. Amazon filed a joint brief with other tech giants including Google, Microsoft, and Facebook that supported Apple on March 3, Thursday.   

The companies argued that it would set a dangerous standard, and dozens of other major tech companies have taken the same position on the issue, according to Fortune.

In addition, security and privacy experts argued that Amazon's reason for pulling local encryption was not a good one. It was discovered on the same day tech companies submitted their pro-Apple brief, and the move could have stopped a PR disaster.

The reason is that the public debate about data security has changed due to Apple's fight with the feds. It has become a national vote on the issue of data security, and resulted in tech giants, security experts, and the general public taking sides.