29/09/2026 · Alentejo
GDPR

Privacy and data protection

This page explains what personal data the O Meu Concelho portal collects, on what legal basis, for how long it is stored, and how you can exercise your rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation EU 2016/679).

01

Data controller

O Meu Concelho — O Alentejo em dados. For any questions regarding personal data, write to geral@omeuconcelho.pt with the subject "GDPR".

02

Minimization

We only ask for what is strictly necessary for the service. We never require a home address, date of birth, or identification documents to participate in the portal.

03

No data selling

We do not sell, rent, or transfer personal data to third parties for commercial purposes. O Meu Concelho Ads campaigns are sold and served by the portal itself, without intermediaries.

04

Google advertising

Part of the advertising space is filled by the Google AdSense network, which is a third party and may use its own cookies to count and limit the number of times each ad is shown to you. Personalization — ads chosen based on your activity — is only activated if you authorize it in the cookie banner. Without this authorization, you will still see advertising, but it will be generic.

05

No proprietary profiling

The portal does not build reader profiles or cross-reference your participation data with advertising. We do not have access to individual reader identifiers used by the ad network.

What data we collect and why

  • Public Square submissions: name (optional), email, and the content you submit. The email is used by the editorial team to contact you in case of doubt and, in the marketplace, to forward the interest of whoever responds to the ad. The email is never published. Basis: consent, given at the time of submission.
  • Comments and replies: name (optional) and comment text. All submissions undergo prior moderation before becoming visible. Basis: consent.
  • Contact with marketplace sellers: name, email, and telephone (optional) of the interested party, plus the message sent. This data is transmitted to the person who published the ad so they can respond. Basis: performance of measures requested by you.
  • Advertiser requests: name of the person in charge, email, telephone, company, and campaign details. Basis: pre-contractual steps.
  • Technical data: a cryptographic hash of the IP address, used exclusively to stop spam and abusive submissions. The original address is not stored. Basis: legitimate interest in service security.
  • Administration account: name, email, and encrypted password of management panel users. Basis: contract performance.

Cookies and local storage

  • Session cookie (omc_session): strictly necessary to keep your session active while participating or using the dashboard. It expires when you close the browser.
  • Browser local storage: saves your theme preference (light/dark), language, chosen radio station, player volume, and the brand of articles you have already clicked "Like" on, so they are not counted twice. It stays on your device and is never sent to the server.
  • Upon entering the portal, we present a cookie banner and reader consent choice. The choice is saved in the browser and can be changed by clearing site data.
  • Google Analytics: is only loaded after accepting the cookie consent, to measure aggregated audience and navigation statistics.
  • Google AdSense: Google's advertising network, and its partners, may store and read cookies on your browser to serve and measure ads and to limit the repetition of the same ad. With your consent, these ads are personalized; without consent, they are generic (non-personalized), which is the default state of this portal. You can consult how Google uses this data at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites and change your preferences at myadcenter.google.com.
  • Advertising and statistics consent: your choice is communicated to Google via the consent mechanism (Consent Mode) and is saved in your browser. You can change it at any time by clearing site data, which will make the banner reappear.
  • We do not use social media cookies or third-party tracking buttons.
  • Typography: fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which may log your browser's request. If you prefer to avoid this, you can block the fonts.googleapis.com domain — the portal remains legible.

How long we keep it

  • Published submissions and comments: as long as they remain published, or until removal is requested.
  • Rejected submissions: deleted within a maximum of 90 days after the decision.
  • Marketplace contact messages: 12 months, to allow the resolution of any disputes between the parties.
  • Advertiser requests and campaigns: during the business relationship and for the legal retention period of supporting documents.
  • Anti-spam IP hash: 6 months.

Your rights

  • Access: know what data we hold about you and obtain a copy.
  • Rectification: correct incorrect or incomplete data.
  • Erasure: request the removal of your submission, comment, or ad.
  • Restriction and objection: request that we suspend a specific processing activity.
  • Portability: receive the data you provided to us in a readable format.
  • Withdrawal of consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing already carried out.
  • Complaint to the National Data Protection Commission (CNPD), if you believe your rights have not been respected.

How to exercise your rights

  • Send an email to geral@omeuconcelho.pt with the subject "GDPR" and indicate what you require. We will respond within a maximum of 30 days.
  • To request the removal of a submission or comment, provide the link (URL) of the publication — that is enough for us to identify it.
  • We may ask you for an element that confirms the request comes from you, so we do not remove content at the request of third parties.

Security and subcontractors

  • The portal is served over an encrypted connection (HTTPS) and passwords are stored with a secure derivation algorithm, never in plain text.
  • Hosting is provided by a web hosting service provider, who acts as a subcontractor and processes data only according to our instructions.
  • Public content data — news, agenda, contracts, tenders, civil protection, and weather — come from official sources and do not constitute personal data processed by us, except when the source itself includes them.

Third-party content

  • Local guide photographs may be obtained from Wikimedia Commons, with author and license indication next to each image.
  • Links to external sites (city councils, official sources, maps) follow the privacy policies of those sites, which we do not control.

Minors

  • The portal is not directed at minors under 16 and does not knowingly collect their data. If you become aware of a submission sent by a minor without authorization, contact us and we will remove the content.

Changes to this policy

  • Any relevant change is published on this page, with an indication of the date of the last update at the end of the text.

Última atualização desta política: 29/09/2026.

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