PORTUGAL Law and Practice Contributed by: Luís Portela de Carvalho, Pedro Cortés and Cláudia de Azevedo Neves, Lektou
Lektou Avenida da República No 59 7º andar, 1050-189 Lisboa Praça do Bom Sucesso No 61 5º andar, salas 501-502, 4150-146 Porto Portugal
Tel: +351 211 507 232 Email: mail@lektou.com Web: www.lektou.com
1. Online Services and Products 1.1 Online Harms or Digital Services Legislation 1.1.1 Key Obligations for Online Services Domestic Framework for Information Society Services Portugal has not adopted a standalone “online harms” regime comparable to the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act. The primary platform and intermediary services framework is the directly applicable DSA, complemented by Law No 12-A/2026 of 15 April, which ensures national implementation of the DSA, amends Decree-Law No 7/2004 and revokes the inter - im Decree-Law No 20-B/2024 of 16 February. Decree-Law No 7/2004 remains relevant as Portu - gal’s domestic framework for information society services and electronic commerce. However, Law No 12-A/2026 amended that regime, including Arti - cle 11 of Decree-Law No 7/2004, which now refers intermediary liability to the common regime with the specifications of the DSA. The DSA therefore provides the primary intermediary-liability framework. Law No 12-A/2026 also establishes the national procedur - al and enforcement rules for DSA orders, including orders to act against illegal content and orders to pro - vide information. Certain residual obligations under Decree-Law No 7/2004 may also remain relevant, including co-oper - ation duties where content made available through a service may constitute a criminal offence.
Sector-Specific Content Obligations Additional obligations arise under sector-specific regimes. • The Portuguese Copyright Code ( Código do Direito de Autor e dos Direitos Conexos , or CDADC) contains rules for online content-sharing service providers. Platforms that store and give the public access to large quantities of user-uploaded content must either obtain licences from rights-holders or, where no authorisation is in place, show that they have made “best efforts” to secure it. They must also act expeditiously to disable access to, or remove, notified infringing material and take pro - portionate measures to prevent the same protected works from being made available again, while providing effective complaint and redress channels for users. In practical terms, the regime imposes a form of copyright-content moderation, although the applicable obligations are subject to proportionality and are less onerous for new or smaller platforms. • The Television and On-Demand Audiovisual Ser - vices Law (Law No 27/2007), as amended to trans - pose the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, requires video-sharing platform providers to adopt measures protecting minors and the wider public from illegal or harmful audiovisual content. This includes content involving incitement to violence or terrorism and hate speech. Appropriate measures may include flagging tools, parental controls and effective complaint-handling procedures. • Under the online gambling regime (Decree-Law No 66/2015), the regulator may order network interme -
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