PORTUGAL Trends and Developments Contributed by: Luís Portela de Carvalho, Pedro Cortés and Cláudia de Azevedo Neves, Lektou
Ius Omnibus brought representative actions relating to consumers resident in Portugal who used Google products or services. In general terms, those actions concern allegations relating to the collection, asso - ciation and combination of personal data at scale, personalised advertising, consent, use of services by minors, cookies, tracking technologies, international data transfers, processing of sensitive data, deceptive interface design and the use of data for artificial intel - ligence models or functionalities. These actions are not based exclusively on the DSA. However, they illustrate the risk environment in which Law No 12-A/2026 will now operate: transparency towards users, personalised advertising, interface design, protection of minors and governance of large- scale platforms. Conclusion Law No 12-A/2026 marks the point at which DSA compliance in Portugal becomes a concrete enforce - ment issue. The substantive obligations already applied under EU law, but Portugal now has a national framework identifying the competent authorities, set - ting procedures for orders and complaints, granting investigative and enforcement powers and establish - ing a sanctions and appeals regime.
For providers active in Portugal, the immediate prior - ity is to ensure that compliance is capable of being evidenced in practice. Service classification, points of contact, legal representation, notice-and-action workflows, moderation records, complaint-handling, advertising transparency, protection of minors, mar - ketplace trader traceability and responses to authority requests should be documented, tested and capable of being explained to ANACOM, ERC, CNPD or, where relevant, another Digital Services Co-Ordinator or the European Commission. Looking ahead, enforcement is likely to develop through a combination of regulatory supervision, cross-border co-operation, user complaints and pri - vate litigation. The Portuguese framework does not turn the DSA into a local regime, but it does make compliance more proximate, more procedural and more evidential. Companies that prepare now will be better positioned to respond to complaints, informa - tion requests, inspections and litigation; those that rely only on published policies may find that the deci - sive issue is not whether a rule exists, but whether the organisation can show how it was applied in practice. In that sense, the time to act is before the first com - plex complaint, inspection or urgent request from ANACOM.
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