Privacy Policy

This is the official website of the author Hermínio Cerqueira. The controller of the personal data collected here is identified below.

You can also write via the Contact page, choosing “Readers and general messages”.

When you subscribe to the newsletter “The Author’s Notebook”:

• your email address (required);
• your name (optional);
• the topics you chose: literature and poetry, geopolitics and defense, artificial intelligence and technology, or all;
• the language of the site in which you subscribed.

In the contact form:

• the subject you chose (for example, press or publishing rights);
• your name and email address;
• the title and text of your message.

Technical data: to stop abusive submissions, the IP address of anyone sending a form is converted into an irreversible code and kept only in the server’s memory for one minute. The site’s hosting provider may also record technical connection data (such as IP address, date, and page requested) for security reasons.

The site does not ask for sensitive data (about health or political or religious beliefs, for example). Please do not include such data in your messages.

• Newsletter: sending you the Author’s Notebook — one letter a month — according to the topics you chose.
• Contact: reading and replying to your message and, where relevant, following it up (for example, arranging an interview or a lecture).
• Security: protecting the forms against spam and abuse.

Your data is not sold, not passed on for commercial purposes, not used for advertising, and not used for profiling or automated decisions.

The newsletter and the contact form are based on your consent, given by checking the acceptance box before sending (Article 6(1)(a) of the General Data Protection Regulation — GDPR).

You may withdraw your consent at any time, without affecting the processing carried out before then (Article 7(3) GDPR).

Technical protection against abuse is based on the legitimate interest in keeping the site secure (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).

To send the newsletter and contact messages, the site will use specialized providers (processors), contractually bound to process the data only on the controller’s instructions and with appropriate security measures.

Current situation: the forms are not yet connected to any of these services. The data you type is checked and then discarded — it is neither stored nor passed on to anyone.

If any provider processes data outside the European Economic Area, this page will state the country and the safeguards that apply, such as the standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission.

• Newsletter: for as long as you remain subscribed. When you unsubscribe, your address is removed from the mailing list.
• Contact messages: for as long as needed to reply and follow up on the matter.
• Technical IP address code: one minute, in memory only.

Under the GDPR, you have the right to:

• access the data concerning you;
• have inaccurate or incomplete data rectified;
• have your data erased (the “right to be forgotten”);
• restrict processing;
• receive your data in a structured, commonly used format (portability);
• object to processing;
• withdraw your consent at any time — for the newsletter, simply unsubscribe.

To exercise any of these rights, write via the Contact page or to the email address given in section 1. You will receive a reply within one month, which may be extended in the cases provided for by the GDPR.

If you believe your data has not been handled properly, you may file a complaint with the Portuguese data protection authority, the Comissão Nacional de Protecção de Dados (www.cnpd.pt (opens in a new tab)), or with the supervisory authority of the EU country where you live.

The books are sold in external stores — Amazon, the stores of the publishers Chiado Books and 24BookPrint, and, for some editions, Fnac (Portugal and France) and Google Books / Google Play Books. When you follow a purchase link, you leave this site and that store’s privacy policy applies.

Purchase links are not affiliate links: the site receives no commission and no information about your purchases.

Fonts and images, including covers, are served by the site itself, with no requests to third-party services such as Google Fonts. The site uses no visitor statistics, embeds no YouTube videos or Google Maps, and has no social media buttons that send data to third parties. The “Share” button uses your own device’s sharing function or copies the link.

Should any of these services be used in the future, this page will be updated beforehand and, where required, your consent will be requested.

Some preferences — light or dark mode, the reading list, and the preferred Amazon store — are stored only in your browser and are never sent to the site. See the details, and delete them if you wish, in the Cookie Policy.

The site is accessed over an encrypted connection (HTTPS). The forms check your data in the browser and again on the server, limit the number of submissions, and include protection against automated submissions.

This policy may be updated when the site changes — for example, once the newsletter provider has been chosen. The version in force is always the one published on this page.