The state’s highest court Tuesday ruled that police must prove they are not racially profiling people when they arrest someone based on information gleaned from social media sites like Snapchat .

The Supreme Judicial Court said a Lowell police gang unit detective’s use of a “nonwhite” bitmoji for a fictitious Snapchat account in a 2020 firearms case appears to have crossed the line from valid intelligence gathering into forbidden, racially biased investigative technique.

“The discriminatory application of criminal laws can take the form of selective prosecution or selective enforcement,” Justice Frank M. Gaziano wrote for a unanimous court. Lawyers for the defendant, Nathaniel Rodriguez, “successfully raised a reasonable inference of selective enforcement.“

Nancy Dolberg, an attorne

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