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51% of Americans think Apple should unlock San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, survey says

The iPhone 5c.

The nonprofit Pew Research Center today released the results of a survey of more than 1,000 U.S. adults regarding the Apple-FBI encryption debate, and the results may be surprising to the technology industry, which has largely sided with Apple.

The results show that 38 percent of respondents thought that Apple should not unlock the iPhone that belonged to San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook — while 51 percent thought Apple should unlock it. The remaining 11 percent had no opinion on the matter.

At every age group surveyed and across both Democrats and Republicans, the respondents came down on the side of the FBI, according to a Pew blog post on the survey.

Companies that have shown support for Apple in the debate include Facebook, Google, and Twitter.


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For more coverage of the ongoing Apple-FBI issue, see our full timeline.