"‘Who is going to pay us when we’re replaced by robots?’ The Indian factory workers told to film themselves for AI", 24 June 2026

...Lalita*...had been working at the garment factory on the outskirts of Delhi for nearly a year when management asked workers on her line to strap small cameras to their foreheads before starting their shifts...

...the camera recorded everything: the rhythm of her hands guiding cloth through the sewing machine; the precision with which she aligned collars and seams; the speed at which her fingers corrected folds and imperfections; even interactions with colleagues...

Worried that their productivity was being monitored, workers became more conscious of their movements...

...their daily routines were being captured as part of a growing effort by companies...to collect first-hand data from factory floors, information increasingly valuable in the race to automate industrial work...

The Guardian’s examination of data-collection practices across six factories in five states found that workers wearing devices...received no compensation for generating footage...

...several companies argued that factories were already being compensated for facilitating the recordings and that no additional payments to workers were necessary...

“The demand for egocentric data is exploding, and new companies are entering the market every month promising to deliver it more cheaply,” says Jindal. “...the pressure to undercut competitors keeps pushing costs downward. By the time that trickles through the supply chain, the workers generating the data are often left with nothing.”

...attempts to compensate workers directly are often resisted by factory owners. “Their argument is that labour costs are already rising and margins are under pressure...”...

Records reviewed by Scroll.in found that some companies also generated productivity reports from the recordings, ranking workers based on time spent actively working...

“A worker may appear to agree to wear a camera, but can they realistically refuse without fearing consequences for their job?”

None of the seven technology companies interviewed by the Guardian said they sought consent directly from workers, instead some stated that permissions were obtained through factory management...

Companies...acknowledge that workers recording the footage are not told exactly how the data will ultimately be used...

“The data originates in a worker’s body and actions, but once extracted it no longer remains attached to them in the same way,” Natarajan says.

That, she argues, raises difficult questions about ownership and compensation...Workers, if paid, are typically paid for their time, not for the long-term value that may be generated from the data they produce...

“We are not even getting our full worth for the work we do now,” she says. “Who is going to pay us when we are replaced by robots?”