Local News

About that friend request from a name you don’t quite recognize . . .

The Supreme Judicial Court ruled on a case involving a Boston police officer who friended a suspect using a pseudonym on Snapchat.

Gabby Jones
The Snapchat application on a smartphone.

The state’s highest court ruled Monday that a Snapchat story recorded by a Boston police officer who friended a suspect using a pseudonym — and then used the clip to charge him in an illegal gun case — did not violate the privacy rights of the man who posted the video.

The unanimous Supreme Judicial Court decision offered what legal experts said was a middle-of-the-road perspective about just what is private, particularly on social media meant to be ephemeral like Snapchat.

The justices rejected an argument from Averyk Carrasquillo that he had a right to privacy in this instance because his Snapchat account was set as “private,” and they rejected an argument from prosecutors that “the act of posting any content to a social media account de facto eliminates any reasonable expectation of privacy.”

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