Privacy Policy

Unlock Portugal (unlockportugal.co) is an independent guide site. This policy explains what information we collect when you visit, how it’s used, and what choices and rights you have. It covers this site only — not any third-party site you reach by following a link from one of our guides.

Who we are

Unlock Portugal is an independent publisher based in Northern Portugal (see the About page). For anything about this policy or your data, contact us at [email protected] — see Contact us about privacy below.

Information we collect

The contact form. The Contact page’s form doesn’t submit to our server or to a third-party form service — pressing “Open email to send” opens a pre-filled message in your own email app, addressed to [email protected]. We only receive what you choose to send once you press send there, the same as any other email. We don’t store form field values anywhere on this site.

Server and hosting logs. This site is hosted on Cloudflare Pages. Like most web hosts, Cloudflare’s edge network processes standard request data for every visit — IP address, browser/user-agent string, requested URL, and timestamp — to serve pages and protect the site from abuse (for example, bot and DDoS mitigation). We don’t run our own separate server-log analytics on top of this.

Site search. Search (the search box near the footer, and the header search overlay) runs entirely in your browser against a static search index (Pagefind) generated when the site is built. What you type is never sent to us or to any third party — matching happens locally, on your device.

Analytics (Google Analytics). With your consent, given through the cookie banner described below, we use Google Analytics to see how many people visit the site and which pages they read. It runs in Google’s Consent Mode: by default no analytics cookies are set and no data is sent to Google, and it only starts measuring once you choose “Accept” in the banner (or had already done so on an earlier visit). If you choose “Reject,” or don’t choose at all, Google Analytics never activates. See Google’s Privacy & Terms for what Google does with that data.

Microsoft Clarity. Also only after your consent, we use Microsoft Clarity to see how visitors actually use the site’s pages — things like clicks, scrolling and anonymized session recordings and heatmaps — so we can find and fix confusing pages. Clarity automatically masks sensitive input (like anything typed into a form field) before it leaves your browser. Like Google Analytics, it never activates unless you choose “Accept.” That processing is done by Microsoft under the Microsoft Privacy Statement.

Cookies and similar technologies

Unlock Portugal doesn’t need a cookie to log you in or remember an account — there’s no login or comments on this site. A few things do use cookies or similar client-side storage, as described below.

The cookie consent banner. The banner that asks for your Accept/Reject choice remembers that choice in your browser’s local storage (not a cookie), together with the date you made it, so it doesn’t ask again every visit — it asks again after about 12 months, or whenever you clear this site’s browser data. You can change your choice at any time using “Cookie settings” in the footer.
Local storage (stays on your device). The search box remembers your last few searches, and the language switcher remembers which language you last picked, using your browser’s local storage (not a cookie). Both are stored only on your own device, are never sent to us or to any third party, and you can clear them anytime by clearing this site’s data in your browser settings.
Affiliate links. Some guides link to a service (for example, a bank, insurer, or booking site) using an affiliate link — see the Editorial Policy and Disclaimer for how and why. If you click one and continue to that site, the merchant or their affiliate network may set a cookie on their own domain to credit us for the referral if you sign up or buy something. That cookie is set and controlled by them once you’ve left unlockportugal.co, under their own privacy policy — we never see who clicked, only that a sale happened.
Travelpayouts script. With your consent, pages load a small script from Travelpayouts, the affiliate network we use for travel partners (for example, booking and tour sites). It helps credit us when you follow a link to one of those partners. Like Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity above, it only loads after you choose “Accept” in the cookie banner — if you reject, or never choose, it’s never requested. When it does load, your browser connects to Travelpayouts’ servers, which receive standard request data such as your IP address, browser type and the page you’re on, and the script may also set cookies or use similar browser storage. That processing is done by Travelpayouts under its own privacy policy (linked in the footer of travelpayouts.com).

Advertising (Google AdSense) — not currently active. This site isn’t currently showing ads; Google AdSense isn’t approved for this site yet. If that changes, Google and its advertising partners may set cookies or use similar technology in your browser to measure ad performance and, depending on your settings and location, to personalize which ads you see, and we’ll update this section when it does. In the meantime, see Google’s Privacy & Terms for what Google collects when AdSense is active on a site, and Google Ads Settings or aboutads.info/choices to review or opt out of personalized advertising generally.

Most browsers let you clear local storage and block or delete cookies in their privacy settings; doing so won’t break anything on this site itself, since nothing here depends on a cookie to function.

Embedded and third-party content

We don’t currently embed third-party video, social-media posts, or other embedded widgets in our guides. If that changes — for example, adding an embedded map or video to a future guide — that content would behave as if you’d visited the other site directly, subject to its own privacy policy, and we’ll update this section when it does.

We use the information above only to run and secure this site (hosting/request logs), to reply to messages you send us (contact form), to remember your recent searches, language choice and cookie-banner choice on your own device (local storage), to measure traffic and improve the site once you’ve consented (Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity), and to credit affiliate referrals (affiliate partners, as above). If we turn on Google AdSense in the future, we’ll also use data to serve and measure advertising, and we’ll update this section then. We don’t sell personal data, and we don’t share it with anyone beyond the hosting, analytics and affiliate parties already named on this page.

How long we keep it

Hosting/request logs are retained by Cloudflare on its standard operational schedule, not chosen by us. Emails sent through the contact form live in our inbox for as long as any normal email correspondence does, unless you ask us to delete them sooner. We don’t hold any comment or account data, because this site has neither comments nor user accounts.

Your rights

If you’re in the EU, EEA, UK, or another jurisdiction with similar data protection law, you generally have the right to ask us to confirm what personal data we hold about you (typically just your own emails to us), correct it, delete it, restrict how we use it, or receive a copy in a portable format. To exercise any of these, email [email protected]. If you’re in the EU/EEA and believe we haven’t handled your request properly, you can also lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority — in Portugal, that’s the CNPD. Wherever you’re visiting from, the same email is the fastest way to reach us with any privacy question or request.

Children’s privacy

This site is a general-audience guide to moving to and living in Portugal, not directed at children, and we don’t knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has sent us personal data (for example, through the contact form), email us and we’ll delete it.

Changes to this policy

We’ll update this page if what we collect or how we use it changes — for example, if we enable Google AdSense, change our analytics/cookie-banner setup, or add a new affiliate partner — and update the date below when we do. Significant changes will also be reflected in the site’s own changelog practices described in the Editorial Policy.

Contact us about privacy

Questions, requests, or corrections about this policy: [email protected], or use the Contact page and choose “Something else.”