Bengaluru-based home services startup Pronto has come under intense scrutiny after revelations that it was running a limited pilot programme involving video recordings inside customers’ homes to train ‘physical AI’ systems. The issue surfaced after social media posts and investor documents suggested that workers on select Pronto jobs were equipped with small outward-facing cameras capable of capturing first-person household activity for AI training purposes.
Meanwhile, the controversy escalated after the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had taken cognisance of the matter amid mounting concerns around privacy, informed consent, and the commercial use of highly sensitive household data, reports MoneyControl.
Pronto, founded in 2025, has rapidly emerged as one of India’s fastest-growing quick home-services startups, offering cleaning, laundry, utensil washing, and other domestic tasks through an app-based model. The company reportedly crossed 500,000 completed bookings by March 2026 and was already executing around 25,000 service orders per day across multiple cities. Investors have aggressively backed the company, with Pronto raising $25 million earlier this year at a $100 million valuation from firms including Epiq Capital, General Catalyst, and Bain Capital Ventures. Reports later indicated that the startup was also in talks to raise an additional $15-20 million at about a $200 million valuation.
But recently, reports emerged suggesting that Pronto’s operational network was also being used to build datasets for robotics and embodied AI systems. The company reportedly viewed household workflows as a valuable source of ‘real-world training data’ for physical AI labs. Unlike large language models that are trained primarily on internet text, physical AI systems require real-world behavioural and spatial data to understand how humans interact with physical environments.
The backlash intensified because the recordings were taking place inside private homes rather than public or controlled environments. Concerns became particularly serious as household footage can inadvertently expose highly sensitive personal information, including family interactions, children, financial details, behavioural routines, health conditions, religious practices, and even the spatial layouts of homes.
Pronto has publicly defended the initiative, insisting that the pilot programme was strictly opt-in and covered only around 0.1% of its customer base. The company said service professionals do not enter homes with cameras unless customers explicitly agree to participate and are compensated for it. It also stated that consent is reaffirmed before every booking rather than being treated as a one-time or permanent approval. According to the startup, the footage is processed with privacy safeguards like automatic face blurring, removal of personally identifiable information, and deletion within 48 hours.
However, some reports have claimed that Pronto’s privacy policy allows the aggregation of user data for ‘research or statistical purposes’ without a clearly defined retention period or requirement for renewed consent. This could also be seen as a potential violation under India’s Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, particularly concerning informed consent, purpose limitation, and the long-term storage or reuse of sensitive personal data.
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Ashutosh is a Senior Writer at The Tech Portal, largely reporting on new tech, and intersection of technology and business. Ashutosh’s career spans across nearly a decade of technology writing across multiple platforms and languages.
