On July 1st, 2015, it will be illegal to sell a smartphone in Minnesota without antitheft software preinstalled. That’s because Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton just signed the first so-called “kill switch” bill into law. The idea is that if smartphone owners can always remotely disable and wipe their phones after they’re stolen, it will deter criminals from stealing them at all. It’s a feature that police departments across the country have requested, due to how popular it has become for thieves to snatch the small, high-value devices. Nationally, an estimated one in three robberies involves smartphones, according to the FCC. Strangely, the actual text of Minnesota’s “kill switch” bill doesn’t actually require a kill switch at all. The letter of the law simply states that phones be “equipped with preloaded antitheft functionality or be capable of downloading that functionality.”