MeitY Questions Home Services Platforms Over Gig Worker Video Data

India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has demanded details from home services platforms Pronto, Snabbit and Urban Company's InstaHelp about their collection of first-person video and sensor data from gig workers to train physical AI models. The inquiry, reported by ET, follows a meeting chaired by MeitY secretary S Krishnan yesterday that brought senior platform executives together with technology and robotics companies.

The agenda was pointed. Officials questioned whether recordings of everyday household activities could infringe workers' rights, compromise consumer privacy and pose risks to national data security — three concerns that now sit at the center of India's physical AI debate.

What did MeitY ask for?

The ministry sought details on the standard operating procedures companies follow for collecting, processing and storing such data. It also requested information on:

• Safeguards for obtaining workers' consent before recording
• Protections for the privacy of other individuals captured in the footage
• Whether companies are selling, sharing or transferring the collected data to physical AI developers outside India

MeitY specifically asked Pronto to submit details of its data collection practices and the SOPs it follows, ET reported, citing people familiar with the discussions. Inc42 has reached out to Snabbit, Pronto and Urban Company for comment and will update the story upon receiving responses.

Why does data sovereignty matter here?

Concerns were reportedly raised about India becoming a source of cheap training data for foreign AI companies. Executives at the meeting suggested the country should focus on building its own physical AI capabilities rather than merely supplying data to overseas developers — a position that echoes broader debates over where the value of AI training data accrues.

The scrutiny lands shortly after Pronto faced questions over a pilot programme to record household chores using cameras worn by service professionals, generating training data for robotics systems. That controversy pulled Snabbit and Urban Company into the frame as well.

How have the companies responded?

Snabbit clarified that it had conducted a limited assessment of the technology in a controlled training-centre environment but decided against proceeding with the proposal. Urban Company founder Abhiraj Singh Bhal was categorical: the company neither records inside customers' homes nor plans to do so.

Pronto confirmed it runs an opt-in pilot involving first-person video recordings of household chores. It said the feature is available only to customers who actively opt in during booking and is limited to less than 0.01% of its users. The startup later told Inc42 that raw footage is deleted immediately after the work is completed, while an anonymised, end-to-end encrypted recording remains accessible only to customers for 48 hours. The anonymised footage is then used for AI training, as outlined in its terms.

What's next for Pronto's physical AI ambitions?

The inquiry casts a shadow on founder Anjali Sardana's expanding physical AI plans beyond home services. In July, the startup formalised its data collection experiment through Verified, an opt-in premium service in which professionals wear head-mounted or body-mounted cameras during visits. Last month, Sardana launched Provision Labs, a San Francisco-based physical AI venture that will collect data to train and test AI systems designed to perform real-world tasks using robots and other machines.

Provision Labs also announced the acquisition of Mumbai-based Basilisk Industries, a startup focused on perception technologies. Basilisk founder Shourya Watwani will lead Provision's hardware efforts and work on its in-house post-processing models. The relationship between Pronto's household data collection and Provision Labs' operations remains unclear.

With MeitY now examining consent practices, data handling and cross-border transfers, the outcome of this review could set the terms under which India's gig economy platforms — and the physical AI ventures built on their data — are allowed to operate.