IMPACT OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN HEALTHCARE IN INDIA: EXPLORING THE ISSUE OF LEGAL LIABILITY

Abstract

Healthcare has been one of India’s most rapidly expanding industries. Yet the Indian healthcare system continues to be plagued by several problems. On this front, artificial intelligence (AI) provides a promising response to various diagnoses and prognoses. However, it equally presents challenges to patient safety, ascertaining legal liability and data security. Considering the complex technology and large number of actors involved in the AI processes, discovering the fault lines is challenging. Apprehensions are ripe that AI would foster the growth of ‘black-box medicines’ leading to opaque computational models of decision-making; and hence, creating ambiguity in negligence cases. Efforts are on in building ‘explainable AI’. Furthermore, concern remains regarding the ‘right to privacy’ with regard to the protection of the large amount of healthcare data of patients, especially after the Sprinklr controversy that arose in the context of the Covid-19 patients in Kerala. Notwithstanding the fact that the new Personal Data Protection Bill of 2019 has classified “health data” as “sensitive personal data” and has provided protection, it has also created exceptions for accessing the same. With over 70 per cent of the healthcare in the private hands, acquiring these data sets in developing algorithms and their subsequent sharing raise serious privacy concerns.