Workers Spy-Cammed For Robot Jobs

A humanoid robot designed by Tesla standing against a gray background

Indian factory workers were fitted with head-mounted cameras and filmed without their knowledge or consent — and the footage is being sold to global tech firms to train robots that could replace them.

Story Snapshot

Workers at a garment factory in Gurugram, India were made to wear head cameras during shifts with no written or verbal consent sought.
A startup called Egolab.AI, founded by two teenagers, collected the footage and claims clients include Tesla, Boston Dynamics, and Figure AI.
Workers earn about $2.60 per hour of footage while tech firms sell that same data for many times more to Fortune 500 companies.
The practice raises serious questions about worker rights, informed consent, and India’s own data protection law.

Workers Filmed Without Consent to Train AI Robots

In early April 2026, two executives showed up at the Gurugram factory of Pearl Global Industries and handed head-mounted cameras to workers on the floor. The workers were told the devices would record their activities during shifts. What they were not told was that the footage would be sold to global tech companies to teach robots how to do their jobs. Workers interviewed by the Indian outlet Scroll.in confirmed that no one asked for their written or verbal consent.

The cameras belonged to Egolab.AI, a startup launched in January 2026 by two teenagers from Maharashtra — 19-year-old Raghav Samani and 18-year-old Varun Pareek. The company describes itself as collecting “high-quality, labour-sourced egocentric video footage” from factory workers. Its own promotional materials claim clients include Tesla, Boston Dynamics, and Figure AI, though those are vendor-stated claims that have not been independently confirmed.

A Troubling Business Model Built on Cheap Labor

The economics here tell a stark story. Workers receive about 250 rupees — roughly $2.60 — for each hour of footage they produce. Meanwhile, AI data firms sell that same footage to Fortune 500 clients for far more. One data firm, Objectways, operates collection sites in Tamil Nadu and works with Amazon SageMaker, according to reports from AFP and Dawn. The value gap between what workers earn and what companies charge creates a powerful incentive to cut corners on consent and worker protections.

This is not an isolated incident. India Today, Al Jazeera, and CNN have all covered similar scenes across India. A garment factory in southern India required sewing workers to wear camera rings to record hand movements for AI motion models. An Indian homemaker filmed herself cutting mangoes to help train household robots — also for $2.60 an hour. The footage teaches AI systems how to grasp, fold, sort, and use tools, skills that robots will need to replace human workers in factories and homes.

Big Tech’s Consent Problem and What It Means for Workers

Companies defend the practice by saying first-person footage is essential for teaching robots to work in real-world settings. Some say they got permission through factory management rather than from workers directly. But none of the seven tech companies interviewed by The Guardian said they sought consent from individual workers. No written contracts, no signed forms, no documented proof that any worker was told their movements were being turned into a commercial AI dataset.

Weird .. the commond mind would be okay with this … and not seeing some worker in a bangladesh / indian texttile factory with those cameras on their heads.

Why ? https://t.co/oKStywaWEn

— Nicky Kamau 🇰🇪 🇺🇸 (@Nickykkamau) July 1, 2026

This matters beyond India. American tech giants are quietly building their robotics and automation pipelines on data extracted from some of the world’s most vulnerable workers — people who have no union, no contract, and no legal recourse. The workers themselves put it plainly: “We’re literally training the robots that will replace us.” India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act of 2023 exists on paper, but no enforcement action has been taken. For conservatives who believe in honest dealing, property rights, and protecting workers from exploitation by powerful institutions, this story is a warning about what happens when Big Tech operates without accountability — anywhere in the world.