SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — The Sacramento County Sheriff is vowing to continue to gather data from cellphone users in the area using Stingray technology, asserting his department has the right to continue to use it.

But Sheriff Scott Jones says he’s modifying the data collection policy as a result of public pressure.

“There’s a lot of mystery surrounding this and is frankly because it’s a mystery I couldn’t talk about,” he said.

The technology acts as a man-in-the-middle attack and intercepts communications from cellphones and cell providers. It acts as a fake cellphone tower to intercept the text messages and conversations from all nearby cellular devices.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has authorized the use of the technology, and a search warrant is not required.

Bowing to public pressure, Jones says his agency will continue to use Stingray, but will ask a local judge to sign a warrant when they need to use it.

Jones say Stingray is used to track dangerous suspects, to find missing persons, during a disaster, or when there’s imminent danger to life or great bodily injury.

Jones calls the new policy groundbreaking and an effort to be transparent.

“The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department is the first state or local law enforcement agency in the country to develop such a policy and provide it public for its use,” he said.

Jones says his department has already used the technology seven times this year.