A woman is suing Austin police and the city to stop her mug shot from being shared publicly online, according to a lawsuit filed in Travis County this week.

The woman, who is referred to only as Jane Doe in the lawsuit, was recently arrested on a misdemeanor charge of driving while intoxicated and was booked into the Travis County Jail. The lawsuit does not say when she was arrested.

Her Austin-based attorney, Ann "Ana" Marie Jordan, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

The woman is claiming that the city, the Austin Police Department and Police Chief Brian Manley would be violating her privacy by publishing her mug shot online unless they can show that releasing it serves a legitimate public interest that outweighs the woman’s interest in keeping it private, the lawsuit says.

Austin police said they cannot comment on pending litigation.

The booking photo has not been published online. A judge will decide at a hearing whether to grant a temporary injunction against publication while the lawsuit is pending.

Austin police policy on booking photos says they are subject to public release unless doing so would interfere with an investigation or with law enforcement interests. All booking photos of adults are to be publicly and automatically released online in the APD Booking Photo Database Search 13 days after the arrest, the policy says.

When the woman was arrested, she was taken to the Travis County Jail, but she refused to have her photo taken. The photo, once posted online, would violate her right to due process and privacy, the lawsuit claims. A deputy for the Travis County sheriff’s office, which runs the jail, told her the booking photo was needed to confirm her identity for internal law enforcement purposes.

The deputy told her she would be put into a cell until she sat for the photo, the lawsuit says. The deputy said she could tell Austin police she did not consent to having her booking photo publicly released once she left the jail.

The lawsuit says the woman sat for the photo involuntarily and contends that she would be embarrassed, even if exonerated, if the booking photo was published online.

"Further, a booking photograph captures the subject in the vulnerable and embarrassing moments immediately after being accused, taken into custody, and deprived of most liberties," the lawsuit says.

When the woman was released from jail, she emailed and sent letters to Manley, Austin city attorneys and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, saying she did not consent to having her booking photo released.

The lawsuit says a city attorney told her in an email that the booking photo would be published on the internet.

On Friday, a city spokesperson told the American-Statesman in a statement: "We have not yet been served with the lawsuit but we are familiar with the allegations and we are prepared to defend the City and Chief Manley."

The lawsuit says the woman also worries that her photo will be used by companies that mine websites for mug shots so "they can later extort individuals who can and do pay large fees over and over again to remove these embarrassing and humiliating photos from multiple internet sites with no guarantee that they will even truly be gone."

Mug shots being made public can help with ongoing investigations or in checking whether policing decisions are being made in an equitable manner, said Jennifer Laurin, a law professor at the University of Texas.

"What I would say is, broadly speaking, there’s a public interest in knowing the details about who is being arrested and charged with a crime," Laurin said.

Laurin said it’s not clear whether the balance between being open and one’s right to privacy is properly calibrated in the age of the internet.

"The rules (police) departments continue to operate under were drafted when photos were on a piece of paper," she said. "That’s no longer the case. These images are durable; they’re infinitely distributable; they’re easy to access. They follow people in a way that the old booking photo didn’t."