Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Rules To Protect Against Discriminatory Social Media Surveillance

On September 30, 2025, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court unanimously ruled that law enforcement must prove that they were not racially profiling people when they arrest individuals based on information gleaned from social media surveillance.

The case, Commonwealth v. Nathaniel Rodriguez, concerned a Lowell Police Department officer who created an undercover, fictitious Snapchat account with a “nonwhite” username and the bitmoji of a “nonwhite” person. The officer subsequently sent friend requests to other users who were already Snapchat “friends” with the undercover profiles of other officers in the PD’s gang unit. Instead of conducting investigations aimed at specific individuals, the fictitious Snapchat accounts were used to monitor the Snapchat stories of a large pool of Snapchat users for indications of criminal behavior. In particular, the gang unit focused their surveillance efforts on users who lived in housing projects with “a variety of cultures.” In total, the department charged five people based on its Snapchat monitoring. All were “nonwhite.”

The Court found that the gang unit’s Snapchat usage raised a reasonable inference of racially motivated selective enforcement and remanded the case for further evidentiary hearings. In particular, the Court focused on the officer’s decision to create a “nonwhite” username and bitmoji, the oblique reference to the racial composition of the surveilled communities, and the racial composition of those charged as a result of the Snapchat monitoring. The Court’s decision helps curtail insidious discriminatory policing under the guise of social media surveillance.

EPIC has previously called attention to the overbroad nature of social media surveillance and its chilling effects. EPIC has litigated Freedom of Information Act lawsuits uncovering ICE’s use of social media surveillance and regularly advocates for stronger privacy protections.