Want to buy an Android, but worried about privacy

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I've been thinking of buying either an Android phone or an Android tablet, just one of the cheap ones. There is one thing that's somewhat concerning, and that is the possibility of the device automatically backing up my data to the cloud without my permission. I know iOS devices automatically load your entire drive to iCloud, and this is a feature that, while it can be turned off, it does it completely gratuitously, and it doesn't discriminate between nonsensitive files and sensitive files that you don't want anyone to have access to.

People often say that what you put on the Internet is there forever. Well, nowadays with cloud computing, if you use an iOS device, anything you put on your private phone or tablet is on the Internet forever. I think this is a violation of privacy, because now your sensitive files are available to Apple and any third parties that can access the master key to decrypt your data (I need only point out the hacking of several iCloud accounts and resulting leaking of celebrities' nude photos to illustrate my case). Your data is also available to the NSA and other federal organizations, so if they think you're a terrorist, all they have to do is subpoena Apple for your unencrypted iCloud data and Apple will gladly comply. Then you have NSA agents poking through all the files that were on your phone. I'd like to think that I can put something really personal (say, a nude selfie, or a private journal entry) on my phone and no one will be able to look at it, not even the feds.

So I guess my question is, do Android devices back everything up to the cloud by default like iOS does? Like is all your data automatically on Google Drive or some other cloud service? If so, how do you turn this feature off?

I have all those features turned off. I also don't stay signed in to any account. I really had to do a lot to customize my phone. They come with a lot of junk apps from the mobile company and manufacturer that need to be deactivated because they are worthless and annoying.

Privacy is only an illusion these days. If you ever use the internet, credit or debit cards, or walk down a street that has cameras or into a store with cameras, you have no privacy. Phone calls are often monitored. Only those that are really paranoid and have the knowledge to keep their data from being collected actually have any sort of privacy.

Unless you live in a poor country without much modern technology, just assume that everyone knows all of your business already.

John McAfee (creator of McAfee Antivirus, but no longer a part of it) offers a few privacy apps through his new business, Future Tense Secure Systems ( http://www.futuretensecentral.com/ ), to help device users know if and when certain other apps, systems or sites will risk the users' privacy. One is DCentral1 which helps to "protect devices by empowering the user to be more fully aware of certain permissions that installed applications have been granted on the device, knowingly or not." There are several similar products that John McAfee offers. Oh, and he is campaigning for election to become the next U.S. president; seriously. Many people call John McAfee "the REAL Most Interesting Man in the World."

Google Drive, (Android's Cloud Storage) can be turned off and disabled. --You can back all of your stuff up to your computer, and from there an external backup drive.

Be careful with encrypted stuff: if it stays on the Internet forever, it stays long enough for it to become technically feasible to break the encryption.

I refuse to use cloud storage for sensitive information. Besides for email and the other things that are unfortunately necessary.

New York is trying to ban the latest iPhone & Android phones because they're too hard to break into. http://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-ipho ... artphones/

Here's a petition to stop it. https://cms.fightforthefuture.org/ny-ip ... &link_id=0