(credit: John W. Iwanski)

Illinois has now joined the ever-expanding list of states that require law enforcement officials to explicitly seek court approval before deploying cell-site simulators, which can locate and track a person’s cell phone without their knowledge.

On Friday, Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) signed the “Citizen Privacy Protection Act” into law, which will take effect on January 1, 2017.

The application to the court “must include a description of the nature and capabilities of the cell site simulator device to be used and the manner and method of its deployment, including whether the cell site simulator device will obtain data from non-target communications devices.” The law also requires the “immediate deletion” of non-target data obtained via the cell-site simulator.