Privacy Policy

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Portugal Property are committed to protecting the personal data provided to us. We aim to be totally secure and transparent in our handling of your personal data. We adhere to GDPR and regularly review and update our data handling policies. This Policy sets out to explain what personal data we store, why we store it, and how we process it.

Updated: 28th February, 2024

What personal data do we store

When you make an Enquiry, we will ask you to provide us with some essential information. This includes your name, email address, phone number, and any property purchase preferences you have. To make it easier to handle your Enquiries, you can create a user account on the website. With this, you can save your personal preferences, review properties you have saved, and review the Enquiries you have. You can also manage all future Enquiries from this location.

Even if you choose to not make an Enquiry, our website may still collect some information about you. This includes your IP address, the type of browser you are using, the operating system you have, any application versions and languages you use, and the settings on your browser. On mobile devices, we may collect the information about the mobile device, the identity of the device, specific settings, characteristics, and your latitude and longitude. When you make a reservation, we will know what website you made the reservation through. We may also receive your information in relation to social media services that you are using.

Why we store your data, and what we use it for?

Enquiry: Firstly, we use the information we obtain to help provide you with the best response to your Enquiry. We will forward all the details regarding the Enquiry to our telemarketing team, who will respond to the information that you provide us.

Customer Service: We offer international customer service seven days a week, through the local office in Portugal. Our team can provide service in over 20 languages to our customers. When you share your details with our support team, we are able to better respond to your needs. This includes helping you to find the right property for your needs, along with answering any questions that may pertain to the Enquiry.

Account Administration: We allow you to create an account on our website. With this information you provide, we allow you to manage your saved properties, make notes, manage Enquiries, do free property Market Reports, and to make future Enquiries easier with your saved personal settings. You can also share lists, properties, and see any properties you have previously searched for before. You may also be provided with more details on properties and locations, along with any star ratings about the properties you have viewed on our website.

Marketing Activities: The information you submit will also be used for our marketing activities as the law permits. For example, if you make an Enquiry with us and you setup a user account, we may use your contact information to send you news about properties that are for sale or our services. With your consent, in areas where this is required by local law, we might also send you other newsletters we offer through your e-mail. You may opt out, or unsubscribe, from any of these marketing communications at any time. Simply click on the "Unsubscribe" button that is found in each newsletter.

With the information you provide to us on our website, we may provide you with individualized opportunities on the PortugalProperty.com website, through mobile apps or even on third-party websites, this includes opportunities listed on social media sites. These offers might based on offers you Enquire about through the PortugalProperty.com website, or third-party offers or products we think you might find interesting.

In cases where we believe a particular property is of interest, our staff might contact you over the phone or through e-mail.

Other Communications: At times, we may opt to contact you through e-mail, traditional mail services, over the phone, or through text messages. This will depend on the information you provide to use. There are several reasons for this. We might have a request you've made we need to handle.

If you didn't complete the Enquiry online, we may ask you if you'd like additional information. This is especially the case if we believe we have information or additional services that would be useful to you. It also allows us to help you carry out the Enquiry without having to search for the same property again.

As you use our services, we might invite you to answer a questionnaire, or to provide us with a review of your experience that you had at PortugalProperty.com.

We may send you additional materials based on your Enquiry history, such as ways you can contact us at PortugalProperty.com. Our team may also send you information about properties and developments that are forthcoming, or even a price reduction that appears on previous Enquires you have done through PortugalProperty.com.  

 Market Research: There are times we may ask our customers to participate in market research. Any of your personal details you provide as part of that will only be used with your explicit consent.

Fraud Detection and Prevention: Our team may use personal information collected to detect and prevent fraud or other illegal and unwanted activities on our website.

Improving Our Services: Finally, we will use personal data provide for analytical purposes, so as to improve our services, boost the customer experience, and to improve all the functions and the quality of all our online travel services.

Sharing your data

There are some cases where we may need to share your personal data with third parties.

Enquiries: As we respond to your Enquiry, we might need to transfer some details about the Enquiry to our vendors of the property, that you have enquired about. This might include your name, contact information, how you purchased the property, and what preferences you made as part of the Enquiry. This information may also be used by PortugalProperty.com and any of the vendors at these properties.

If you have any questions about an Enquiry, you may contact the vendor of the property and they can help you with your request.

Your Local PortugalProperty.com Office: So we can provide seven day service to our clients and support the vendors and distribution partners, we will share your information to all of our local PortugalProperty.com offices (Lisbon, Vilamoura, Lagos, Golden Triangle). If you are interested in learning more information about these local offices, please visit our contact us section.

Third-party Service Providers:
There are times we may use service providers, such as data processors, to help us to process your data on our behalf. This processing helps us to better facilitate the Enquires and to send our marketing material and analytical support services. These processors are all bound to confidentiality clauses and they are not allowed to use your personal information for anything else.

Portugalproperty.com currently passes data to Google Analytics who act as data processors in order to target appropriate product placement to visitors of the site. Google Analytics is not passed any Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and is independently compliant with GDPR practices.

Competent Authorities:
We will abide with all laws as required in terms of providing personal information to government authorities and law enforcement agencies as required for the detection, prevention, and prosecution of fraud and criminal acts. 

Security of Your Personal Data

We operate our site in full compliance with GDPR in order to prevent unauthorized parties from accessing or using your personal information. We also have security measures in place to ensure the safety of your personal data, including procedures and systems which restrict the access and use of personal data stored on our servers – this data is only accessible to a small number of authorized personnel who require access to this information to perform their work. We operate under the GDPR recommendation of "Least Privilege".

We follow strict security procedures in the storage and disclosure of your personal data, and to protect it against accidental loss, destruction or damage. The data you provide to us is protected using SSL (Secure Socket Layer) technology. SSL is the industry standard method of encrypting personal information so that it can be securely transferred over the Internet.

Children
The services offered on PortugalProperty.com are not intended for children under the age of 18. Children may use our services only with the explicit consent of their parent or guardian. We reserve the right to delete any information received from a child under 18 years of age.

Cookies and Site Tracking

What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files which are downloaded to your web browser. This Privacy and Cookies Policy applies to cookies and other similar technologies (hereafter referred to as “cookies”).

Why do we use cookies on our website?
Cookies help us to remember who you are. Like any other website, our site doesn’t recognize you when you visit a particular page on our site. Cookies give us the ability to recognize you across all of our site’s pages and to remember choices you make, including language, currency and search criteria preferences. Cookies also let us recognize you when you return to our website for subsequent visits.

Are all cookies the same?
There are several different kinds of cookies, each of which has a different purpose. Cookies can be classified by their duration, their function and by who places them on websites.

How do we use cookies?
We use the following types of cookies on PortugalProperty.com:

• Technical Cookies: Our site is designed to be as user-friendly as possible and to learn the needs and wants of our visitors. In order to provide you with this exceptional user experience, we use technical cookies to help create user accounts and login management, to display our site to you and for a variety of behind the scenes technical purposes. They’re an essential part of how our website functions and provides you with the features you see on the site.
• Functional Cookies: Functional cookies help us to remember your preferences to make our site as easy as possible for you to use. For instance, these cookies help us to remember your preferred language and currency, your preferred search criteria and which properties you’ve viewed on our site. While functional cookies are not essential to the functionality of the site, they ensure a better user experience and provide important features to users like you.
• Analytics Cookies: These cookies help us to understand how people use our website, to assess what’s working well and what needs improvement and to offer the best, most relevant content to our visitors. They are an important part of the constant process of improvement and optimization that we do for the site. These cookies collect data which includes which pages you entered and left our site from, which pages you’ve visited and when you visited them, the number of clicks per page, scrolling activity, search terms you use on the site and any other text you type on our website. Analytics cookies are also an integral part of our online advertising efforts which tell us how people use our site after seeing advertisements for our site online, whether these are on our site or third party websites. Additionally, our business partners may also use these cookies in order to determine whether their customers are taking advantage of accommodation promotions on their own websites.
• Commercial Cookies: The commercial cookies on our website include both our own cookies and third party cookies which are used to display relevant advertising on our site and others. These ads are targeted towards users based on their browsing behaviour, including accommodations and destinations viewed as well as pricing offers which have been displayed. Third party commercial cookies on our site may be used by selected partners to advertise their products and services on our site.

How long do PortugalProperty.com cookies remain active?
The lifespans of the cookies on our site vary in length to as long as five years. However, you can remove any and all cookies from your browser at any time. Please see the following article if you wish to remove cookies from your browser: How to clear cookies in your browser.

How can I find PortugalProperty.com cookies?
You can see our cookies by looking in your web browser’s settings.

Does PortugalProperty.com use third-party commercial and analytics cookies?
Yes, PortugalProperty.com uses third party cookies from reputable, trusted online marketing and advertising companies. PortugalProperty.com may also use third party analytical cookies in order to enable the services that these third parties provide. All third party cookies are from providers which are committed to high standards of responsible data management and business practices.

Whenever possible, we work only with online marketing and advertising companies which are members of the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) and/or the NAI (Network Advertising Initiative), both of which are organizations which uphold industry standards and codes of conduct – members of the NAI and IAB also make it possible for consumers to opt out of behavioral advertising.

If you would like to learn more and control how Google Analytics collects data about your browsing, please visit this link: Website Data Collection.

Who has access to the data collected by PortugalProperty.com cookies?
No one other than PortugalProperty.com has access to PortugalProperty.com cookies. Cookies which have been placed on the site by third parties are only accessible by these parties.

How can you manage your cookie preferences?
You can tell your browser which cookies to reject and which to accept by using the settings menu for your web browser. The exact location of this menu will depend on the browser you’re using - if you’re having trouble finding it, use your browser’s “Help” function to find where the settings you’re looking for are located.

Keep in mind that rejecting some cookies could limit your ability to use some of the functions of our website. Other than through our cookies, our site does not support “Do Not Track” settings in web browsers. If you opt out of a particular advertising network, this does not mean that you will not receive any further ads or that your browsing behavior will not be analyzed; it simply means that the online advertising network you have chosen to opt out of will no longer deliver ads to you which are based on your browsing habits or other preferences.

Does PortugalProperty.com use web beacons?
PortugalProperty.com occasionally uses web beacons in addition to cookies. Web beacons are one pixel images which are downloaded to your computer either in an email message including HTML or as part of a web page request. These pixels may be used either by our site or by third party service providers to help determine whether visitors who view online advertising on our site or others also make reservations or conduct other business with partner websites. Web beacons also help us to track visitor traffic and bring you the best possible travel-related services.

Data Protection Officer
In compliance to GDPR we have appointed a Data Protection Officer (DPO) for portugalproperty.com.

If you feel your data has been mishandled by portugalproperty.com you can make a complaint for the attention of the DPO at info@portugalproperty.com.

Such complaints will be investigated in a timely manner, and the findings of the investigation will be sent directly back to the individual. 

Your Data Protection Rights

Under certain conditions, by law you have the following rights:

1. The right to be informed: The Data Processor must inform you (typically in a privacy notice) about how they will process your data. You must be informed in a concise, transparent way, and there must be no charge for the service.
2. The right of access: Access to your data must be provided on request. It must be free of charge, and in an easy to access common format.
3. The right to rectification: Individuals have the right to have inaccuracies in their personal data rectified. Such rectifications must be processed within one month if not deemed too complex for the timeframe.
4. The right to erasure: The Data Processor must have procedures in place to erasure any personal data securely, either when requested by the individual, or when there is no compelling reason to continue to process the data.
5. The Right to Restrict Processing: The individual has the right to block or restrict the processing of their personal data, when they have removed consent for it to be processed, when they contest it’s accuracy, or when processing is illegal; however they do not want to exercise their right for erasure.
6. The right to data portability: The individual must have the right to easily move their data from portugalproperty.com and begin processing it in another site. The data should be provided in a commonly used machine readable format (such as CSV) and must be provided free of charge.
7. The right to object: The individual has the right to object to direct marketing, and processing based on legitimate interest. After an objection all data processing must cease immediately with no grounds to refuse.
8. Changes to Privacy Policy: Our Privacy Policy may change from time to time and any changes to the statement will be communicated to you by way of an e-mail or a notice on our website.

 

This cookie policy has been created and updated by Cookie Scan.

Consent to the use of cookies.

For our website to function properly we use cookies. To obtain your valid consent for the use and storage of cookies in the browser you use to access our website and to properly document this we use a consent management platform: CookieFirst. This technology is provided by Digital Data Solutions BV, Plantage Middenlaan 42a, 1018 DH, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Website: https://cookiefirst.com referred to as CookieFirst.

When you access our website, a connection is established with CookieFirst’s server to give us the possibility to obtain valid consent from you to the use of certain cookies. CookieFirst then stores a cookie in your browser in order to be able to activate only those cookies to which you have consented and to properly document this. The data processed is stored until the predefined storage period expires or you request to delete the data. Certain mandatory legal storage periods may apply notwithstanding the aforementioned.

CookieFirst is used to obtain the legally required consent for the use of cookies. The legal basis for this is article 6(1)(c) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Data processing agreement

We have concluded a data processing agreement with CookieFirst. This is a contract required by data protection law, which ensures that data of our website visitors is only processed in accordance with our instructions and in compliance with the GDPR.

Server log files

Our website and CookieFirst automatically collect and store information in so-called server log files, which your browser automatically transmits to us. The following data is collected:

• Your consent status or the withdrawal of consent
• Your anonymised IP address
• Information about your Browser
• Information about your Device
• The date and time you have visited our website
• The webpage url where you saved or updated your consent preferences
• The approximate location of the user that saved their consent preference
• A universally unique identifier (UUID) of the website visitor that clicked the cookie banner