AUSTIN, Tex. — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Facebook owner, Meta.

Paxton alleges that Meta illegally collected users’ biometric data, including facial recognition technology, without their consent.

The lawsuit goes on to accuse Meta of sending the information to others for profit.

According to the suit, Facebook violated a Texas law that requires people to get permission before capturing a person’s biometric information.

The suit also alleges that Facebook failed to destroy the data in a reasonable amount of time, which violates state law.

The Attorney General’s Office says Facebook violated state law billions of times.

Meta is also accused of violating Texas’ Deceptive Trade Practices Act because it reportedly misled users.

There is a $25,000 penalty for each unlawful capturing of a biometric identifier.

The lawsuit asks for an additional $10,000 civil penalty for each violation.

Paxton estimates that the penalties could add up to billions of dollars.

This lawsuit out of Texas is similar to another suit out of Illinois in 2021, where Facebook was accused of using its Tag Suggestions tool to store users’ biometric data without their consent.

The suit ended with a class action privacy settlement.

Facebook was ordered to pay $650 million.

Meta has not commented on the recent lawsuit in Texas.

AUSTIN, Texas —

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has threatened to sue Austin and Travis County leaders over their coronavirus mask requirements.

In a letter sent to Austin Mayor Steve Adler and Travis County Judge Andy Brown, Paxton said he would sue unless local mask mandates in place were rescinded by Wednesday, March 10, at 6 p.m. CST.

But both leaders said they wouldn't back down on their requirement. Adler told CNN Thursday morning, "I would anticipate to be sued today."

"We promised the people in this community a long time ago that we would be driven by the data and the doctors and we're going to make good on that promise for however long we can," Adler said. "The science and the data are very clear that the single most important thing we can all be doing at this point is wearing masks."

Through an executive order that took effect Wednesday, Texas lifted its statewide mask mandate and any capacity restrictions on businesses across the state. The order states residents cannot face penalties for not wearing a face mask.

But a Tuesday statement from the city of Austin said health authority rules for both the city and Travis County that require people to wear a face covering when outside of their residence will remain in effect. Austin is the Travis County seat.

"While vaccine administration is underway, we are still not in a place of herd immunity and need people to wear face coverings in public and around non-household members so we can avoid another surge of cases," Dr. Mark Escott, interim Austin-Travis County Health Authority, said in a statement.

The existing city enforcement rules say people who knowingly violate a health authority rule could face a fine of up to $2,000. CNN has reached out to both the city of Austin and Travis County for further clarification on enforcement and penalties.

'This is just not the time'

In his letter, Paxton said the decision to require masks or impose limits is up to businesses and "does not rest with jurisdictions like the City of Austin or Travis County."

"City/county leaders must not be thinking clearly. Maybe it's oxygen deprivation from quintuple-masking," Paxton wrote in a tweet accompanying the letter. "Travis County and Austin have a few hours to comply with state law or I'll sue them."

As of this writing, CNN has not received formal notice that Paxton has followed through on his threat.

Adler said that while there has been an improvement in COVID-19 numbers in Austin, it has taken a lot of work by the community to drive down cases and they're hoping not to lose that progress now.

"It's just not the time. We're so close. It's not the time to take risks. It's not the time to do this two days before spring break starts. It's not the time to do this when we see that there are new variants that are coming into our community," Adler said Thursday. "This is just not the time to put at risk the opening of schools and the further opening of businesses in a way that can be sustained."

In a separate interview Wednesday evening, Brown told CNN he wasn't deterred by the state attorney general's threat.

"My biggest concern right now is we've only vaccinated 9% of our population here in Travis County," Brown said.

Divisions between local and state leaders

The battle over the mandates represents a widespread challenge across the country — divisions between local and state leaders on what public health measures should stay in place. And with more governors announcing this month they're easing restrictions, that gap in some cases has only widened.

In Mississippi, after Gov. Tate Reeves announced last week he was lifting county mask mandates and allowing businesses to operate at full capacity, some local leaders expressed disagreement. Among them was Greenville Mayor Errick Simmons, who said the governor's decision created "unnecessary risk" for communities.

"It is challenging in some of these states — in Texas and Mississippi and so on — where at the local level, even though the mask mandate has been lifted, public health is still messaging the importance of mask-wearing to prevent spread of the disease," Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, told CNN Wednesday.

"We're kind of at odds with one another in terms of state to local in some cases," she added.

It's happened before. Over the summer, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp sued Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms over the city's mask mandate. Kemp argued the mandate violated his emergency order prohibiting local action from being more prohibitive than the state's requirements.

In August, the Kemp announced he was withdrawing the lawsuit.