Privacy, trust, and engineering tools: Our position at MarsBased

A few weeks ago, while preparing our quarterly management meeting, we ran into something that made us stop and think.

As part of our tooling stack, some of our software engineers use Cursor, an AI-powered code editor. Cursor works on a subscription basis, but pricing is partly usage-based, depending on how much the underlying AI models are used. Because of that, their internal admin dashboard provides very detailed usage data.

And when we say detailed, we mean very detailed.

The dashboard shows statistics per employee and per repository. You can see when commits are made, whether AI was involved or not, how many lines of code were edited, and which repositories each person worked on. In short, it gives a very granular view of how each software engineer uses the tool, almost down to a minute-by-minute activity log.

From a purely analytical point of view, some companies might see value in this. You could try to measure productivity, compare usage patterns, or draw conclusions about individual performance.

We don’t think that’s the right approach.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

At MarsBased, trust is a foundational principle. We do not monitor private Slack messages. We do not read private emails. We do not track when someone types a message, sends a commit, or takes a break.

Seeing this level of detail about tool usage felt like crossing a line.

Even if the intention is not to control or micromanage, having access to such specific data changes the relationship between the company and the people who work for us. It introduces an implicit sense of surveillance, whether it’s used or not that breaks trust

We believe software engineers should be judged on outcomes, collaboration, and responsibility, not on how many lines of code they edited at 8:01am versus 8:02am on a Friday.

Transparency over silent monitoring

Another important point is transparency. The fact that a company has access to this data does not always mean employees are aware of it.

We believe that is not acceptable.

So we have decided to be explicit and public inside the company about this reality: yes, the company technically has access to certain usage data from tools like Cursor. That data exists because of how these tools are built and billed. Other tools, like Google Workspaces have had this functionality for years, where you can access the accounts of your employees. It is not a new thing.

At the same time, we are making our position very clear: we will not monitor, analyse, read, or review individual usage data related to AI editors or similar tools. We will not use it to assess performance. We will not use it to infer working hours or productivity patterns.

The only exception is when there is a legal obligation to do so, for example in cases related to harassment, security incidents, or other serious matters where access to logs is required.

This is the same standard we apply to other internal tools.

Updating our company handbook

To avoid ambiguity, we are updating our company handbook to clearly reflect this policy.

Everyone should know:

• What kind of access the company technically has
• What we explicitly choose not to do with that access
• Under which exceptional circumstances that access might be used

Policies should not live only in people’s heads or informal conversations. They should be written, visible, and easy to understand.

Freedom of tools, always

One last but important point: we do not enforce the use of Cursor or any other specific code editor. Every software engineer at MarsBased is free to choose the tools they are most comfortable with, as long as they align with our security and collaboration requirements.

If someone prefers another editor, that’s perfectly fine. Tooling should empower people, not constrain them.

Our stance

AI tools are evolving fast, and many of them come with levels of visibility that were simply not possible a few years ago. As a company, we think it’s our responsibility to draw clear boundaries.

We want to understand tools at a high level. We want to make informed decisions about costs, capabilities, and workflows. But we do not want to turn internal tools into monitoring systems.

Trust is hard to build and very easy to lose.

Our commitment is simple: transparency with our team, respect for individual privacy, and a clear decision to not use data in ways that undermine the culture we want to build.

That’s the kind of company we want to be.