AI Data Collection in Lagos: What a Recording Pilot Looks Like From the Inside

Imagine you are a phone repairer in Computer Village, a tailor in Aba, or a cook in a busy Lagos buka. You spend your day fixing phones, stitching fabrics, or preparing delicious meals. What if the work you do every day could help build the future of artificial intelligence? TrustAm is running a pilot program in Lagos where people just like you can earn by recording their daily work and conversations. This is a look inside that pilot, what it means to record, and why your everyday Nigerian life is valuable for AI.

Is Recording Videos for AI Legit in Lagos? How TrustAm Verifies Contributors and Workplaces

The first question on many minds is: is this real? Can I actually earn money by recording my work? Yes, and TrustAm takes legitimacy and safety very seriously. For potential contributors, the process starts with robust identity checks. We use your BVN or NIN, matching it against national records, and a live selfie to confirm it's really you. Payments are only sent to a bank account or TrustAm account in your name. This one-person, one-account rule ensures fairness and security. TrustAm also visits and registers every workplace in person. A field agent confirms the business exists, gets consent from the owner before any recording starts, and maps the premises. This protects both the contributor and the business owner, as detailed in Shop Owners: How to Let Your Staff Record AI Data at Your Workplace Safely.

This verification process is key to building trust and ensuring the data collected is authentic and useful for AI training. It also means that the work opportunities are real and the payments are legitimate. The pilot is currently focused on trades like tailoring, auto mechanics, phone repair, cooking, hair braiding, welding, carpentry, and market trading, covering major Nigerian languages like English, Nigerian Pidgin, Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa.

What Does Recording Your Work Actually Involve?

Recording your work for AI data means capturing first-person video and audio of you performing your tasks. You'll typically use a head-mounted phone holder to keep your hands free. For speech data, you might record yourself speaking in your native language or in a conversation. The goal is to create realistic, unscripted data that AI systems can learn from. Think of it as showing an AI exactly how a tailor cuts fabric, how a mechanic tightens a bolt, or how a cook chops onions.

Before each recording session, you'll state a consent line in your own language, confirming you agree to the recording and its use for AI training. This is crucial for ethical data collection, as covered in Your Rights When You Share Data for AI in Nigeria: Consent, Withdrawal and Deletion. At the start of each recording, you'll read a random three-digit code aloud and show both hands. This helps with data integrity. The app also records motion sensor (IMU) and GPS data alongside the video, providing extra context for the AI models. Automatic checks look for issues like frozen video or dropped frames, and then trained reviewers meticulously check each minute of footage. Only approved minutes are paid for. If a minute is cut, the reason is provided, and you can appeal. This ensures quality and fairness.

The Lagos pilot pays ₦5,500 per approved hour of recording. Payments are made in naira to your own bank account for minutes that pass review. TrustAm never asks for payment to join or for any equipment. You need a smartphone with Android 9 or newer, a decent camera, and about 8GB of free space to record. Uploads are best done over Wi-Fi to save your mobile data, as discussed in Uploading AI Recordings Without Finishing Your Mobile Data.

Why Is This Data So Important for AI Development?

AI systems learn by example. The more diverse and realistic the examples, the smarter and more helpful the AI becomes. AI models need to understand how people work, speak, and interact in the real world. This is especially true for AI that will be used in Nigeria and across Africa. Generic AI trained on data from other parts of the world often doesn't understand local languages, accents, or the nuances of Nigerian work and culture.

By collecting data from Lagos workers, TrustAm is helping to create AI that is relevant and useful for Nigerians. First-person video data, like that collected in the Ego4D dataset, is essential for training robots to perform tasks and for developing AI that can understand human actions Ego4D: Around the World in 3,000 Hours of Egocentric Video (arXiv). Similarly, authentic speech data in various Nigerian languages is needed for voice assistants, translation tools, and more. The Nigerian government itself, through NITDA, recognizes the importance of AI development for the nation's future, as outlined in the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy (NCAIR/NITDA). This data collection is a practical step towards achieving that vision.

What Happens to Your Data? Security and Privacy

TrustAm takes data privacy and security extremely seriously. All approved recordings are stored securely for licensing to AI and robotics teams. You have control over your data. You can request the deletion of your recordings at any time. Recordings that are not approved are deleted after 90 days.

When reviewers examine recordings, they see blurred media and masked identities, protecting your privacy. Sensitive personal information like BVN or NIN is stored using a salted hash plus the last four digits, a secure method for handling personal data in line with Nigeria's data protection laws, such as those guided by the Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC). Bystanders' faces in recordings are automatically blurred to protect their privacy. For conversational tasks, all speakers must consent before recording begins. This commitment to privacy and consent is fundamental to TrustAm's operation and is a core part of Recording at Work Without Filming Customers: Privacy Rules for AI Data Contributors.

For AI Buyers: High-Quality, Verified Data from Nigeria

AI and robotics teams looking for authentic, high-quality data from Nigeria can find it with TrustAm. We provide first-person video and Nigerian speech data that is meticulously verified and curated. Our Lagos pilot is generating data from a diverse range of trades and languages, offering a unique window into real-world Nigerian activities.

We offer a free 10-hour sample of data, recorded to your specific requirements. Following the pilot, we can provide weekly batches of data with QA reports, leading to monthly contracts. Data is delivered in blurred MP4 format (1080p30) with accompanying JSON metadata, consent manifests, and QA reports. LeRobot and RLDS formats are available on request. This data is crucial for developing AI applications that are culturally relevant and perform well in African contexts, supporting the goals outlined in initiatives like the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR). For more on acquiring such data, see data for AI and robotics labs.