Pronto controversy exposes gaps in India’s AI data privacy laws
Pronto controversy exposes gaps in India’s AI data privacy laws
Publish Date: 2026-05-25 07:13:00
Source Domain: www.thehindubusinessline.com
Legal and privacy experts warn that India’s evolving data protection framework leaves major grey areas around consent, privacy and commercial use of domestic recordings.
Legal and policy loopholes in the use of human-generated data for artificial intelligence training are increasingly being exploited by companies, with experts warning that India’s still-evolving data protection framework has left wide grey areas around consent, privacy, and the commercial use of recordings captured inside homes and workplaces.
The latest controversy surrounding domestic services start-up Pronto’s use of in-home recordings for AI training has brought the issue into sharp focus, but the practice itself is part of a much wider trend in which companies are collecting so-called “egocentric” or first-person human activity data to train robotics and embodied AI systems.
Pronto controversy sparks wider scrutiny
The Pronto episode triggered public scrutiny after investor documents cited in media reports said the company was generating data to train “physical AI and robotics systems” and was already piloting “real-world training data with leading physical AI labs”. The company later acknowledged that it was conducting a pilot involving recordings during domestic services such as dishwashing, folding laundry and cleaning, while maintaining that participation was voluntary and limited to 0.1 per cent of customers. The backlash also prompted rivals such as Urban Company and Snabbit to publicly distance themselves from any similar practices.
Legal experts say India is emerging as a hub for such data collection because of the availability of low-cost labour and relatively weak worker protection frameworks. At the same time, privacy experts point out that the law has not kept pace with the rapid expansion of AI training practices, especially when recordings are sourced from private homes or workplaces. Experts said the issue exposes a…
