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Stephen Almond, ICO’s Executive Director of Regulatory Risk, commented on Meta's ad-free subscription service

“One of our key priorities is to ensure that people’s information rights are upheld by the online advertising industry. Earlier this year we ran a call for views on ‘consent or pay’ models, in which service users pay a fee to not be tracked for online advertising. We are considering the responses received and will set out the ICO’s position later this year.

"Following engagement with Meta, we are examining how UK data protection law would apply to any potential ad-free subscription service. We will expect Meta to consider any data protection concerns we raise prior to any introduction of a subscription service for its UK users.”