Terms and Conditions
In force from 11 September 2026.
This page sets out who runs this site, what you can do here, what happens after you send an application or make a donation, and where our responsibility ends. Using the site means you accept these terms. If something here does not sit right with you, write to us: we would rather take the objection apart than leave it unanswered.
1. Who runs this site
opengateportugal.com is owned and operated by:
Name: SYNTHESIS OPEN GATE PORTUGAL ASSOCIAÇÃO
Name used publicly: Synthesis Open Gate Portugal Association
Legal form: associação (a non-profit association under Portuguese law)
Constituted: 27 June 2024
Legal entity number (NIPC): 518248941
Principal activity code (CAE): 94995, other membership organisation activities
Registered address: Rua Pedro Hispano, Número 11, 3º esq.º, 2790-250 Carnaxide, Oeiras, Portugal
Email: info@opengateportugal.com
These details are published following article 10 of Decreto-Lei n.º 7/2004 (the Portuguese e-commerce decree-law), which requires a provider of information society services to give permanent, direct and easy access to its identifying details. We publish them whether or not that obligation reaches a non-profit site: it costs nothing and it is plainly useful to the reader.
The Association's founding act and statutes are published officially and can be retrieved by its NIPC on the Portuguese Ministry of Justice publications portal, publicacoes.mj.pt. We do not reproduce them here, so that no version on this site can drift from the registered one.
2. What this site does, and what it does not
It does. Describe the Association's work. Take membership applications. Run a knowledge base, a blog and a section of conference materials. Publish profile cards of specialists who take part in the work. Announce events and take registrations. Receive voluntary donations.
It does not. Sell services, provide paid consultations, sell goods, sell gift cards, or take bookings for paid services.
What this site does not cover at all. Alongside the Association, the All Portugal ecosystem includes commercial projects: a media studio, a children's academy, an events venue, a festival, a business club, a shop. They belong to a different legal entity, DESCOBRILANÇA UNIPESSOAL LDA, which runs its own sites, its own terms and its own contracts.
We are related organisations with a founder in common, and we say so openly. But we are not one legal person. The Association is not a party to contracts made with the commercial projects, does not answer for their services, prices, refunds or deadlines, and cannot resolve a matter about an order you placed on one of their sites. Write to the organisation you actually contracted with. If you are not sure which that is, ask us and we will tell you.
When we talk about producing our materials, we mean the partner studio where we produce them, not a studio of our own. When we talk about the venue where our meetings happen, we mean a partner's venue. We phrase it that way on purpose, because any other phrasing would state something untrue about ourselves.
3. Who these terms apply to
Everyone who opens the site, and anyone who submits an application, registers for an event, makes a donation, or sends us material.
We do not run separate terms for separate categories of visitor. Where a clause applies only to members, or only to event participants, the clause says so.
4. Membership
Membership of the Association is free. There is no fee to apply and no fee to have an application considered.
Filling in the form is an application, not an admission. Membership does not arise automatically from submitting the form, from receiving the automated confirmation that it was submitted, or from the fact that we replied to you. The Association's governing body decides, under its statutes and under the Portuguese Civil Code (Código Civil, articles 167 and following). We will contact you and tell you the outcome.
A refusal does not have to be explained, but if you ask us, we will explain it.
Members' rights and duties, how the general assembly is convened, and how a member leaves or is excluded, are set by the Association's statutes, not by this page. The statutes are provided to members and to applicants on request, by writing to info@opengateportugal.com.
You may leave the Association at any time. What happens to your data then is set out in section 5 of the Privacy Policy.
The Association's annual accounts and activity report are approved by the general assembly each year and are provided on request. Internal minutes of governing body meetings (atas) are not published: they contain the names of those present and the course of discussions, which is other people's personal data, and publishing it would be disproportionate under the data minimisation principle in article 5(1)(c) GDPR.
5. Donations
A donation through this site is a voluntary contribution to the Association's work, given freely and with nothing given in return.
What it is not. It is not payment for goods, not payment for a service, not a membership fee and not an event fee. You acquire no right, no advantage and no obligation on our part in exchange. That is precisely why a donation is not refundable the way a purchase is: there is nothing to give back, because nothing was bought.
The one exception. A clear technical payment error: the amount was taken twice, an amount different from the one you entered was taken, or the payment went through because something plainly malfunctioned. Write to info@opengateportugal.com with the date and the amount, and we will check and return the difference. We are not going to argue with you about whether you made a mistake.
About tax, stated directly. As things stand, the Association does not hold the Portuguese public utility status (estatuto de utilidade pública) and is not among the recipients whose donations give the donor a tax deduction under articles 62 and following of the Portuguese Tax Benefits Statute (Estatuto dos Benefícios Fiscais). We do not issue fiscal donation receipts (recibo de donativo) and we do not claim that your donation gives you a tax advantage.
We say this plainly because the opposite claim would put you at risk, not us: a deduction claimed without entitlement is challenged with the donor, not with the recipient. If the position changes, we will write it here before we start issuing any such document.
What we do with the money: it goes to the Association's statutory work. What we keep about a donor, and for how long: section 6 of the Privacy Policy.
6. Experts and profile cards
Specialists who are willing to take part in our work reach us through the expert application form: to speak, to run a session, to prepare material, to advise participants.
Submitting the form creates no obligation on either side. We are not obliged to publish a card or to invite you, and you are not obliged to accept any particular request. Whatever follows is agreed separately.
A card is published with your knowledge and to the extent you set yourself. We do not assemble profiles from public sources. You can have a card removed or changed at any moment, in one message to info@opengateportugal.com.
Taking part in the Association's work is unpaid unless separately agreed in writing. We do not call the specialists who take part volunteers: in Portugal volunteer status is formalised under Lei n.º 71/98 (the volunteering act), with a volunteering programme, a written agreement and insurance, and we have not put that in place. We say "invited specialists taking part voluntarily", because that is what is true, and calling it anything else would mislead you and the reader alike.
An expert's opinion is that expert's opinion. Publishing a card or a specialist's material does not mean the Association vouches for their qualifications, guarantees the outcome of their work, or becomes a party to your dealings with them.
7. Events and registration
Event registration runs through the built-in Wix Events system.
Most of our events are free. Where a contribution is set for a particular event, its page says so, states the amount, and says what it covers.
If the Association cancels an event, any contribution paid is returned in full, with no deductions, by the method it was paid.
If an event moves, your registration carries over to the new date. If the new date does not suit you, write to us and we will refund you.
We do not cover related costs: travel, accommodation, time taken off work. That limit applies except where the law requires more of us.
Events take place at venues the Association does not own. The venue's own rules and the organisers' safety instructions apply, and we ask you to follow them. Where an event has an age limit, its page says so; a child comes with an adult unless the page says otherwise.
Where photography or filming takes place at an event, the event page and a notice on site will say so. The conditions of filming and how to opt out are set by whoever runs the event and does the filming: if that is the Association, come to us; if it is the venue or its owner, their rules apply.
8. Knowledge base, blog and conference materials
These sections exist so that knowledge produced inside the community stays available instead of evaporating after the meeting.
Informational in nature. Everything published here is general information and is not legal, tax, financial, medical, immigration or any other professional advice. Portuguese law and administrative practice change; the material stays dated to the day it was written. Before making a decision with consequences, check with a professional that it still holds.
We do not guarantee completeness or currency. We take reasonable care, but material is written by different people at different times and mistakes happen. If you find one, write to us: we will fix it and thank you.
Conference materials are published with the knowledge of the people who presented them. If you presented and want your material taken down or replaced, write to us.
9. Material you send us
This section covers files and texts sent through the "Submit material" form, blog comments, posts in shared sections, photographs, and anything else you publish here or send us to publish.
The rights stay yours. Sending material does not transfer copyright. You give the Association permission to keep the material and to use it for non-commercial purposes connected with its statutory work: to publish it on the site, to include it in the knowledge base, to use it in the activity report and in materials for donors, with attribution where attribution belongs.
What we do not do. We do not sell your material, we do not pass it to third parties for their own purposes, and we do not hand it to the commercial projects of the ecosystem for use in their commercial work. If that possibility ever arises, we will ask you separately.
Third party rights are your responsibility. Send only what you have the right to send. That covers other people's photographs, music, fonts, other people's text, and images of people. If a rights holder complains about material you sent, the complaint is yours to answer.
Other people's personal data. Do not send contact details, documents or information about other people. Send photographs of other people only with their agreement; where the photograph shows a child, the agreement comes from a parent or other legal guardian.
Taking down your own material. Write to us and we will remove it. Allow a reasonable window for the technical side.
We are not an archive. Keep your own copies of anything that matters to you.
10. The Association's own content
Text, photography, video, audio, music, logos, the name and the design of the site belong to the Association or are used by it under licence.
You may quote from it in reasonable measure with attribution, and you may share a link to a page any time without asking. Reproducing something in full, adapting it, or using it commercially needs our written permission. Write to us: we answer such requests, and we say yes more often than no.
Some material we publish as free to download and use. Where that is the case, the page says so and states the conditions.
11. How we expect people to behave here
This site is open to people who came to Portugal from different countries and who are in very different situations. The rules are short and ask little of you.
Not allowed: insults and harassment, incitement to hatred on any ground, threats, unagreed advertising, spam, publishing other people's personal data, pornography, incitement to violence, and passing yourself off as another person or as a representative of the Association.
Material that breaks these rules or the law is removed, and we tell the author. For a serious or repeated breach we may close an account. We warn before closing, except where waiting would harm someone else.
12. Accounts and profiles
Some sections of the site need an account.
Look after your password: anything done from your account counts as done by you. Tell us at once if you see a login that was not you.
Use a real email address: a confirmation or a reply cannot reach a wrong one.
Profile visibility. As things stand, member profiles are open to view by other visitors by default. You can ask us to close your profile or delete it, by writing to info@opengateportugal.com. Section 8 of the Privacy Policy has the detail.
You can delete your account at any time by the same message. What stays with us and why is set out in the Privacy Policy.
13. Liability and its limits
We are responsible for what we do: the content of our own material, the running of our own events, the handling of your data.
Information on the site is general and does not replace advice from a lawyer, a doctor, an accountant, a tax adviser or an immigration specialist. That applies to the content of events, talks and knowledge base materials too.
We are not responsible for: the content of third party sites we link to; services provided by other organisations in the ecosystem or by third parties, even where you first heard of them here; the conduct of specialists you approached through a card published here; or site downtime caused by the platform, the payment service or a telecoms operator, though we will make reasonable efforts to get things working again.
We are not liable for indirect loss, loss of profit, or costs arising from using the site or attending an event.
We do not limit our liability where the law does not allow us to: for death or personal injury, for intent and gross negligence, and wherever a mandatory rule of Portuguese law says otherwise. Nothing in this section may be read as a waiver of that liability.
14. Complaints and disagreements
Write to us first at info@opengateportugal.com. Tell us what happened and what you want. Most situations resolve in one exchange, faster than any formal route. We answer written complaints within a reasonable time, and we do not let them go unanswered.
Where the matter concerns your personal data, you have a separate route: a complaint to the Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados, www.cnpd.pt. You do not have to come to us first.
If our answer does not satisfy you, you remain free to bring the matter before the competent Portuguese courts.
15. Personal data and cookies
What happens to your data is set out in the Privacy Policy. What appears on your device and how to control it is set out in the Cookie Policy. Both pages form part of these terms and are read together with them.
16. Governing law and courts
Portuguese law governs these terms and any relationship arising from use of the site.
Disputes go before the competent Portuguese courts. If you are an individual and the law of the country where you normally live gives you protection that cannot be taken away by agreement, that protection stands.
17. Language
The site is written in Russian, and the Russian version opens at the address ending in /ru. The English version is served at the address without an ending. These terms exist in both languages and say the same thing in each.
You are welcome to write to us in Russian, English or Portuguese. We reply in the language of your message.
If the versions differ, the reading more favourable to you applies.
18. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms. A new version applies from the date shown at the top of this page.
Where a change materially affects the rights of members or of event participants, we will say so directly rather than hope you come back to reread.
19. The whole agreement
Everything governing your use of this site is in this document, in the Privacy Policy and in the Cookie Policy. We do not point you at rules kept somewhere else, and we do not apply terms you had no chance to read in advance.
If any clause turns out to be invalid, the rest stay in force.
20. Contact
SYNTHESIS OPEN GATE PORTUGAL ASSOCIAÇÃO
NIPC 518248941
Rua Pedro Hispano, Número 11, 3º esq.º, 2790-250 Carnaxide, Oeiras, Portugal
opengateportugal.com
In force from 11 September 2026.
