Privacy Policy

The Vila project is currently developed by Ana Rita Pereira de Freitas and Afonso de Sousa Magalhães e Castro, who act as joint controllers of the personal data collected through this website.

Both participate in determining the main purposes and means of processing associated with Vila and cooperate in complying with applicable data protection obligations.

The common contact point is ola@somosavila.pt. You may exercise your rights through this address or directly with either joint controller.

If the legal structure responsible for Vila changes, this Privacy Policy will be updated before that change has a relevant effect on the processing of your personal data.

The information we process depends on how you interact with Vila. We aim to collect only the information necessary for each purpose.

When you submit a support request, we process the information necessary to understand the request, contact you and identify suitable support options.

This may include your name, email address, telephone number where provided or required by your chosen contact method, city or location, the type of support requested, contact preference and information you choose to add to the context field.

We may also record operational information associated with the request, such as submission date, request status and identifiers related to transactional messages.

When you apply to join the Vila network, we process the information necessary to review your application, assess suitability for the network, contact you and, where applicable, proceed with verification and onboarding.

This may include your name, contact details, professional role or roles, service areas, experience, training, availability, working style, languages, professional links, information about how you heard about Vila, references and role-specific answers.

Submitting an application does not guarantee admission to the network or allocation of support requests.

When you use the contact form, we may process your name, email address, telephone number where provided, contact category and the content of your message.

When you contact us directly by email, we process the information included in your communication and any information necessary to manage and respond to it.

If you choose to contact Vila through WhatsApp, your communication will also be subject to the terms and privacy practices of WhatsApp and the entities responsible for that service.

We do not use general contact messages to send direct marketing unless an appropriate legal basis exists for doing so.

Vila does not ask for diagnoses, test results, medication information, detailed medical histories or other health information that is not necessary to initiate a support request.

Please do not include medical or particularly sensitive information in free-text fields unless it is strictly necessary and has been specifically requested through an appropriate process.

We also ask you not to include unnecessary personal data about children or other people, such as full names, dates of birth, identification numbers or medical information.

If we inadvertently receive excessive or particularly sensitive information that is not necessary, we will seek to restrict its processing and delete, anonymise or minimise it where appropriate.

The legal basis depends on the specific purpose of the processing and your relationship with Vila.

Confirming that you have read the Privacy Policy on one of our forms does not, by itself, constitute consent to all processing activities. It records that the privacy information has been made available to you.

Vila may use technologies that are strictly necessary for the operation of the website without consent where permitted by law.

Non-essential analytics or measurement technologies that require consent should only be enabled after the user has made that choice.

Where authorised, we may use measurement services such as Google Analytics to understand, in aggregate, how the website is used and to improve the experience.

Cookie and analytics preferences are addressed separately in our Cookie Policy.

Vila’s forms do not currently subscribe users automatically to newsletters or promotional communications.

Access to personal data is limited to people and organisations that need it for the purposes described in this policy.

Vila’s primary database is configured in a European Union region.

Some technology providers or their subprocessors may process certain information outside the European Economic Area.

Where an international transfer is subject to the GDPR, we seek to use providers that make legally appropriate safeguards available, such as adequacy decisions, European Commission-approved Standard Contractual Clauses or other applicable mechanisms.

We retain personal data only for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, without prejudice to longer periods required by law or necessary to exercise or defend legal rights.

Under applicable law, you may have the right to request access to your personal data, rectification or erasure, restriction of processing, to object to certain processing and, where applicable, data portability.

Where a specific processing activity is based on consent, you may withdraw that consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing carried out before its withdrawal.

Where processing is based on our legitimate interests, you may have the right to object on grounds relating to your particular situation.

Exercising your rights is generally free of charge and requests will be handled within the periods established by applicable law.

You may exercise your rights through ola@somosavila.pt or directly with either joint controller.

If you believe that the processing of your personal data does not comply with applicable law, you may contact us so that we can review the matter.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Portuguese supervisory authority, Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados — CNPD.

We use technical and organisational measures designed to protect personal data against unauthorised access, loss, alteration, destruction or improper disclosure.

These measures include server-side validation, database access restrictions, data minimisation, mechanisms designed to prevent abusive use of forms and separation between public and server credentials.

No technology system can guarantee absolute security.

Vila does not currently make decisions producing legal or similarly significant effects on an individual solely through automated processing.

This Privacy Policy may be updated to reflect changes to the service, the structure responsible for Vila, the providers we use, our processing activities or applicable legal requirements.

Where a change is relevant, we will update the date and version of this policy.

For privacy-related questions, further information about the joint-controller arrangement or to exercise your rights, contact us at ola@somosavila.pt.