cursor-privacy-settings

Cursor Privacy Settings

Configure Cursor's privacy controls to protect your code and data. Covers Privacy Mode, data handling policies, file exclusion, telemetry, and enterprise security settings.

Privacy Mode

What Privacy Mode Does

With Privacy Mode ON	With Privacy Mode OFF
Zero data retention at model providers	Providers may retain data per their policies
Code not used for training (Cursor or providers)	Code may be used to improve AI models
Embeddings computed without storing source	Same embedding behavior
Telemetry: anonymous usage only	Telemetry may include code snippets

Enabling Privacy Mode

Individual: Cursor Settings > General > Privacy Mode > ON

Team enforcement (Business/Enterprise): Admin Dashboard > Privacy > "Enforce Privacy Mode for all members"

When team-enforced:

• Individual users cannot disable Privacy Mode
• Client pings server every 5 minutes to verify enforcement
• New members automatically have Privacy Mode enabled

Verifying Privacy Mode

1. Cursor Settings > General -- check Privacy Mode toggle
2. cursor.com/settings -- shows account-level status
3. For teams: Admin Dashboard shows enforcement status per member

Data Flow: Where Your Code Goes

Your Code in Editor
       │
       ├─► Tab Completion ──► Cursor's proprietary model server
       │                      (zero retention with Privacy Mode)
       │
       ├─► Chat/Composer ──► Model provider (OpenAI/Anthropic/Google)
       │                     (zero retention agreements in place)
       │
       ├─► Codebase Index ─► Cursor embedding API ─► Turbopuffer (vector DB)
       │                     (embeddings only, no plaintext code)
       │
       └─► BYOK ───────────► Your API provider directly
                             (your provider's data policy applies)

What IS Stored

Data	Stored Where	Retention
Embeddings (vectors)	Turbopuffer (cloud)	Until project re-indexed
Obfuscated file metadata	Cursor servers	Active session only
Anonymous telemetry	Cursor analytics	Aggregated, no PII
Account info	Cursor auth servers	While account active

What Is NOT Stored (Privacy Mode ON)

• Plaintext source code
• Chat prompts and responses
• File contents sent for completion
• Code snippets from Tab suggestions

Sensitive File Exclusion

.cursorignore (Best-Effort AI Exclusion)

# .cursorignore -- prevent files from AI features + indexing

# Credentials and secrets
.env
.env.*
.env.local
.env.production
**/secrets/
**/credentials/
**/*.pem
**/*.key
**/*.p12

# Regulated data
**/pii/
**/hipaa/
**/financial-data/

# Internal configuration
.cursor-config-private
infrastructure/terraform.tfvars

Important: .cursorignore is best-effort. Due to LLM unpredictability, it is not a hard security boundary. Do not rely solely on .cursorignore to protect truly sensitive data.

Defense in Depth

Layer 1: .gitignore        → Secrets never in repo
Layer 2: .env files        → Config via environment variables
Layer 3: .cursorignore     → Best-effort AI exclusion
Layer 4: Privacy Mode      → Zero data retention at providers
Layer 5: BYOK + Azure      → Route through your own infrastructure

Telemetry Configuration

What Cursor Collects

With Privacy Mode ON, telemetry is limited to:

• Feature usage counts (how often Chat/Composer/Tab used)
• Error reports (crashes, not code content)
• Performance metrics (response times)
• Extension compatibility data

Disabling Telemetry

// settings.json
{
  "telemetry.telemetryLevel": "off"
}

Or: Cursor Settings > search "telemetry" > set to "off"

Note: Disabling telemetry may reduce Cursor's ability to diagnose issues affecting your account.

Network Security

Required Domains

Allowlist these domains in corporate firewalls/proxies:

api.cursor.com           → AI API requests
api2.cursor.com          → AI API requests (fallback)
auth.cursor.com          → Authentication
*.turbopuffer.com        → Codebase indexing (embeddings)
download.cursor.com      → Updates

Proxy Configuration

// settings.json
{
  "http.proxy": "http://proxy.corp.com:8080",
  "http.proxyStrictSSL": true,
  "http.proxyAuthorization": "Basic base64-encoded-credentials"
}

TLS/SSL

All Cursor API communication uses TLS 1.2+. Certificate pinning is not supported, so corporate SSL inspection proxies work (add proxy CA to system trust store).

Compliance Mapping

SOC 2

Control	Cursor Coverage
CC6.1 Logical access	SSO, RBAC, MFA via IdP
CC6.6 System boundaries	Privacy Mode, .cursorignore
CC6.7 Data transmission	TLS 1.2+ for all API calls
CC7.2 Monitoring	Admin dashboard usage analytics

GDPR

Requirement	Cursor Coverage
Data minimization	Privacy Mode: zero retention
Right to erasure	Account deletion removes all server-side data
Data processing agreement	Available on request (Enterprise)
Sub-processor list	Published at cursor.com/privacy

HIPAA

Cursor does not have a BAA (Business Associate Agreement) as of early 2026. For HIPAA-regulated code:

• Enable Privacy Mode
• Use .cursorignore for PHI-containing files
• Consider BYOK through Azure with BAA
• Consult your compliance team before use

Enterprise Considerations

• SOC 2 Type II report: Available on request for Enterprise customers
• Penetration test results: Annual pen tests, results shared under NDA
• Data residency: Cursor processes requests via US and EU infrastructure. No region pinning available yet
• Encryption: AES-256 at rest, TLS 1.2+ in transit
• Incident response: Cursor maintains a security incident response plan (details in SOC 2 report)

Resources

• Cursor Privacy and Data Use
• Cursor Security
• Privacy and Data Governance Docs
• Account Privacy Settings