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 The results of the poll were released late on Monday, in the
middle of a legal battle between Apple and the U.S. Justice
Department over a judge's order that Apple write new software to
disable passcode protection on the iPhone used by one of the San
Bernardino, California shooters.
The two sides were set to face off in court on Tuesday, but late on
Monday a federal judge in Riverside, California, agreed to the
government's request to postpone the hearing after U.S. prosecutors
said that a "third party" had presented a possible method for
opening an encrypted iPhone.
The development could bring an abrupt end to the high-stakes legal
showdown which has become a lightning rod for a broader debate on
data privacy in the United States, which was inflamed by revelations
in 2013 from former National Security Agency contractor Edward
Snowden about the U.S. government's massive surveillance programs.
When asked if they trust Apple to protect data from hackers, 60
percent of respondents said they strongly agreed or somewhat agreed,
according to the poll, conducted March 11 to 16.
That is in line with responses to the same questions about Alphabet
Inc's Google, Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp.
 The poll found only one in 10 people consider security options such
as encryption and passcode protection to be the most important
considerations when shopping for a new phone. Performance and price
were far ahead, each ranked as the most important factor by about a
third of those polled.
"Security is one of these things that gets people in trouble when it
lapses, but it’s not something consumers are going to be shopping
for," said Ipsos pollster Chris Jackson.
The results suggest that Apple's refusal to comply with a U.S.
government demand that it unlock an iPhone has not given it extra
credit with consumers, Jackson said.
"This (poll) was about getting a feel to see whether Apple is seen
as some kind of exemplary company," Jackson said. "It's not."
Apple certainly sees itself as a guardian of customers' privacy. The
company "will not shrink from that responsibility," declared Chief
Executive Tim Cook on stage at the launch of a new iPhone on Monday.
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"Apple has the same halo as many tech companies: A majority of
people, but not a huge majority, agree that they trust them to
protect their information," Jackson said.
Consumers were, however, less trusting of two of the six companies
covered in the poll: online social media service Facebook Inc and
internet company Yahoo Inc.
Asked if they trust Facebook to protect personal information from
hackers, 39 percent said they agreed. For Yahoo, 44 percent agreed.
Jackson said people may feel differently about Facebook's security
because it exposes more user data than the other firms surveyed.
The online survey of roughly 1,703 adults has a credibility interval
of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.
Representatives for Apple, Alphabet, Amazon.com, Microsoft and Yahoo
did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A statement from Facebook said, in part, that "Protecting your
personal information is more important than ever, and that's why
security is built into every Facebook product and design."
(Reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston; Additional reporting by Yasmeen
Abutaleb in San Francisco; Editing by Bill Rigby)
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