Bengaluru: Home services startup Pronto has launched a new programme that offers selected househelp professionals nearly double their regular monthly earnings in return for wearing forehead-mounted cameras while working inside customers’ homes.
The initiative, called Pronto Verified, is a paid service that records cleaning sessions through visible head-mounted cameras. The footage is also used to create datasets for training artificial intelligence (AI) models.
Workers earn significantly more
According to the company, regular Pronto professionals earn between ₹18,000 and ₹26,000 a month. Those enrolled in the Verified programme currently earn around twice that amount, with the potential to earn nearly three times their regular salary as the service expands.
At present, the programme is limited to a few hundred bookings and employs a low triple-digit number of workers. Pronto plans to increase the workforce to around 2,000 professionals over the next 15 days.
Customers pay extra for recorded service
Customers opting for the Verified service pay an additional fee ranging from ₹25 for a 30-minute booking to ₹119 for a 90-minute session.
Pronto said customer consent is obtained both during booking and again when the service professional arrives at the residence.
According to the company, the camera is positioned to capture only the worker’s hands, forearms and immediate work area. It does not record audio, and customers can access an anonymised, encrypted recording for up to 48 hours.
Privacy concerns spark debate
Pronto co-founder and CEO Anjali Sardana said the initiative was introduced to address customers’ concerns about allowing unfamiliar workers into their homes, particularly when they are away.
The company said original videos are deleted after processing, while anonymised datasets derived from the footage are retained for AI training. These datasets include hand and arm movement mapping for tasks such as cleaning and organising.
The programme has, however, drawn criticism from privacy advocates, with concerns raised about recording inside private homes. Rival home services platforms, including Urban Company and Snabbit, have stated that they neither record customers’ homes nor plan to introduce similar services.