Privacy Policy

Data controller

The data controller is AIM - ALGARVE IMPORTS, UNIPESSOAL LDA, company number (NIPC) 519578430, registered office in the Algarve, Portugal, trading as Algarve Imports.

Contact for privacy matters: info@algarveimports.pt or +351 910 205 804.

What data we collect

Contact form: your name, email address and the content of the message you send us. Delivery is handled through the Resend email service.

Import estimator: the data you enter so we can produce an estimate, namely the vehicle listing link (URL), the country of origin and the vehicle's characteristics (fuel, engine size, CO₂, date of first registration, mileage and price).

WhatsApp and chat: if you start the conversation, your phone number and the messages you exchange with us.

Aggregate location and device: from your IP address we derive the approximate country and city, using a local database and without calling any external service, and from your browser identifier we derive the device class, operating system and browser. These fields are kept for 24 months for security and aggregate statistics.

For security and abuse prevention, we record every visit (IP address, browser, page visited and time) and keep these records for 24 months.

Purposes and legal bases

To answer contact requests and prepare quotes: pre-contractual steps at your request and our legitimate interest in replying [Art. 6(1)(b) and (f) GDPR].

To produce the import estimate you request through the estimator: pre-contractual steps and legitimate interest [Art. 6(1)(b) and (f)].

To communicate with you on WhatsApp when you start the contact: your consent and pre-contractual steps [Art. 6(1)(a) and (b)].

To comply with legal obligations, in particular tax and accounting obligations, where a contract exists: legal obligation [Art. 6(1)(c)].

Recording visits to the website for security and abuse prevention: our legitimate interest [Art. 6(1)(f)].

Data retention

Contact requests that do not lead to a contract are kept for up to 12 months and then deleted. Estimator and car finder data, including the IP address, and visit records are kept for 24 months and then deleted.

Where a contract is entered into, the necessary data is kept for the period required by Portuguese tax and accounting law (as a rule, 10 years).

Processors and providers

We use providers that process data on our behalf, under contract: Vercel (website hosting and delivery), Cloudflare (DNS, security and content delivery network), Resend (sending the form emails) and Anthropic (the Claude API that powers the chat assistant and the estimator's language processing).

We do not sell your data and we do not share it for third-party marketing.

Transfers outside the EEA

Some of these providers (Vercel, Cloudflare, Resend, Anthropic) are based in the United States and may process data outside the European Economic Area. In those cases, the transfers rely on appropriate safeguards: the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and/or certification under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, as applicable to each provider.

Automated decisions

The ISV (vehicle tax) estimate is calculated automatically, but it is purely indicative and produces no legal effects on you: the final tax amount is confirmed only by the Tax Authority and reviewed by us before any contract. We do not make decisions based solely on automated processing that produce legal or similarly significant effects within the meaning of Art. 22 GDPR.

Your rights

You have the right to access your data and to have it rectified, erased or restricted, the right to object to its processing, the right to data portability and the right to withdraw consent at any time. To exercise them, contact us at info@algarveimports.pt.

If you believe the processing breaches the law, you may lodge a complaint with the Portuguese data protection authority (CNPD) at www.cnpd.pt.

You can delete your account at any time from /account, without contacting us. Deletion removes the account, the email address, sessions, saved calculations and searches, favourites and finder history. Aggregate statistics are anonymised with a code that cannot be traced back to you, and records required by accounting or tax law are kept for the legal retention period, with no link to the account.

Data Protection Officer

Appointing a Data Protection Officer (DPO) is not mandatory for our activity under Art. 37 GDPR, since we are not a public authority and our core activity does not consist of large-scale monitoring or the processing of special categories of data. For any privacy matter, please use the contact above.