Lisbon, July 25, 2025 (Lusa) - Portugal's Secretary of State for the Treasury and Finance said on Friday that the Government is working on regulating the “right to be forgotten” in credit and insurance and argued that it must be balanced to protect individuals and insurers.
According to João Silva Lopes, the “right to be forgotten” law (passed in 2021) was a “civilisational achievement”, but previous socialist governments left the regulation “regrettably forgotten and unfinished”, announcing that the current executive is in the process of defining rules so that people who have overcome or mitigated serious illnesses, such as cancer, are not discriminated against in access to credit or insurance.
“Those who have overcome or mitigated illnesses should have access to the same conditions for contracting credit and insurance,” said the minister at the conference dedicated to the ‘right to be forgotten’, organised today in Lisbon by the ASF - Insurance and Pension Funds Supervisory Authority.
However, the minister added that the regulations will have to be drafted in such a way as to balance the interests of both patients and companies: “This is a change that will have to be made in a balanced way, ensuring non-discrimination and protection for individuals without jeopardising the sustainability of the system and the insurance business,” he said.
On 1 January 2022, the “right to be forgotten” law (approved in 2021) came into force, ensuring access to credit and insurance for people who have overcome and mitigated serious illnesses. However, the law remains unregulated.
Last September, Portugal's consumer watchdog Deco and patient organisations lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman for the lack of a decree-law regulating the law, considering that this has encouraged discriminatory practices.
The regulations will define, among other things, the information that credit institutions and insurance companies must disclose on their websites and establish a reference grid that will allow for the definition of terms and deadlines that are more favourable than those defined in the legislation for each disease or disability and what information may be requested from patients.
At the conference organised today by the ASF, the director-general of the consumer protection watchdog Deco, Ana Cristina Tapadinhas, said that before the law, thousands of people experienced financial and social exclusion that “perpetuated the stigma of illness”.
She gave the example of a young man who had leukaemia at the age of 16 and overcame it, but at the age of 28 was unable to buy a house with credit because he could not take out life insurance.
For Tapadinhas, this law is fundamental, but the regulations prevent its practical application and she added that many citizens are not even aware of this right.
Deco praised the ASF for instructing insurers to inform consumers of this right clearly and in writing, and criticised the Bank of Portugal for not yet having given similar instructions to banks.
The director-general of Deco also said that the current situation raises another issue, namely the ease with which insurance companies can study consumer profiles, starting with the Internet, to identify risky behaviour, which she considers to "undermine the right to be forgotten".
For the president of the Portuguese Insurers Association (APS), Galamba de Oliveira, regulation is important to define how insurers should act and protect themselves against financial risks.
One of the most important things in regulation, he said, is to understand what an overcome illness is and what a mitigated illness is (the latter being an even more complex concept).
He also stated that the decree-law should clarify to which financial products the “right to be forgotten” applies. According to him, in France, the “right to be forgotten” law only applies to first home loans, and Portugal will have to define whether it applies only to these loans or not.
For law professor José Alberto Vieira, this law is "a small band-aid", as the insurer retains the commercial freedom to refuse insurance, which it cannot justify with clinical data as it cannot collect it.
According to the lawyer, the law now allows those who take out insurance to “lie to the insurer, either negligently or intentionally”, which is why he considers that the current law “does not solve the problem of non-discrimination and has weaknesses”.
The ASF has a page on its website dedicated solely to providing information on what the ‘right to be forgotten’ entails.
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