The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on 12 November 2026 held a consultation with home services platforms, including Pronto, Snabbit and Urban Company, and robotics firms on the use of first-person video and sensor data from gig workers to train physical AI models. Secretary S. Krishnan chaired it, The Economic Times reported.

The meeting turns a privacy debate that began in May 2026 into a formal policy conversation. It also comes as India’s physical AI ecosystem grows quickly, from new state-level physical AI policies in Andhra Pradesh to start-ups building training datasets for robotics labs abroad.

What MeitY wants to know about physical AI data

According to the report, the ministry asked participants for their standard operating procedures for collecting, processing and storing such recordings. Officials also wanted details on how platforms obtain workers’ consent and how they protect the privacy of other people, such as family members, who may be captured on camera inside a home.

The trigger, one person briefed on the discussions told the newspaper, was a home services platform equipping domestic workers with head-mounted cameras that record everyday household tasks. The footage is then used to train physical AI systems, the robots and machines that learn to clean, cook or fold laundry by watching people do it.

• Pronto has started in-home video recording through its opt-in Verified service.
• Urban Company and Snabbit have decided against adopting the practice, the report said.
• Some executives at the meeting questioned the practice of collecting such data in India and selling it to overseas physical AI developers.

How Pronto’s Verified recording works

Pronto’s Verified service terms, last updated in July 2026, say customers give consent through a one-time passcode and must tick each purpose separately, including the training of AI and machine-learning models. The terms limit recording to areas where work is being done, such as kitchens and living rooms, and say customers can view an anonymised version of the video for 48 hours after the service.

The same terms allow Pronto to keep irreversibly anonymised or aggregated data indefinitely and to use it to train third-party models. That clause sits at the centre of the sovereignty question officials raised. Pronto’s founder Anjali Sardana has also set up Provision Labs to build a data layer for physical AI, a San Francisco-based venture. Provision has since acquired Mumbai hardware start-up Basilisk to build data-capture hardware, including a tactile glove.

Why physical AI data governance matters for enterprises

Large language models learned largely from text on the open internet. Robots have no such library, so developers need recordings of real people doing real tasks in real homes and factories. India’s large services workforce makes it a natural source of this data, which is why the question of who controls it is becoming urgent.

For CIOs and data leaders, the consultation is a signal that MeitY is watching how AI training data is gathered, not only how models are used. It builds on the ministry’s recent work on the DEPA framework for training AI on sensitive data and the obligations under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. The report did not point to any formal guidance or rules arising from the meeting.

Key takeaways

• MeitY Secretary S. Krishnan chaired a consultation on physical AI data collection on 12 November 2026.
• The ministry sought platforms’ procedures on consent, storage and privacy of people caught on camera.
• Data sovereignty, including the sale of Indian household data to foreign AI developers, was a key concern.

FAQ

What is physical AI training data?

It is video, motion and sensor data showing how people perform real-world tasks, used to teach robots and other machines to act in physical spaces.

Has MeitY banned in-home recording for AI training?

No. The 12 November meeting was a consultation with industry, and no rules or guidance from it have been reported so far.

Featured image: MeitY Secretary S. Krishnan at a media briefing in New Delhi, 22 August 2025. Photo: Press Information Bureau / MeitY via Wikimedia Commons (GODL-India).

Be a part of Elets Collaborative Initiatives. Join Us for Upcoming Events and explore business opportunities. Like us on Facebook , connect with us on LinkedIn and follow us on Twitter.

"Exciting news! Elets technomedia is now on WhatsApp Channels Subscribe today by clicking the link and stay updated with the latest insights!" Click here!