Corporate Liability in AI-Driven HealthTech: A Legal-Ethical Framework for Data Misuse and System Failures

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming the current state of healthcare, including medical diagnostics, treatment planning, and patient management, as its use is growing in the medical field. Nevertheless, this innovation has its dark side as well as legal and moral issues are also very complicated, especially liability of corporations to misuse of data and system malfunctions. The presented research describes the loopholes in the current legal systems that are insufficient to deal with the responsibility of companies utilizing AI-based HealthTech systems. The paper critically reviews the real-life examples of DeepMindNHS data-sharing dramas, the case of IBM Watson oncology and the Theranos scandal to highlight the various dangers of algorithmic opacity, absence of informed consent and tendency to be under-regulated. The national and international statutes, case laws, expert interviews, and policy documents are analyzed through the use of a doctrinal legal research methodology supported by a qualitative thematic analysis.

These results show that existing legislation (including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), HIPAA and the Information Technology Act (India)) provide limited guard since they do not effectively govern AI-generated harm and specify corporate liability. The risk environment is also enhanced by ethical issues, especially those that concern patient autonomy, algorithmic bias, as well as data commodification. The study suggests the legal-ethical framework that focuses on the transparency, distributed liability, governing data, and ethical by design concepts in terms of the development and implementation of the AI systems. Within this framework, the systematic reviews of ethical audits, explanations requirements, and accountability standards incorporated into the corporate governance workbench are promoted. It also maintains the necessity of global regulatory standards that are harmonized to deal with the cross-border characteristic of HealthTech applications.

Finally, the paper emphasizes that it is not enough to go by the law but companies have to assume ethical responsibilities to promote societal health, privacy, and confidence. The advanced framework can provide policy-makers, regulators and corporate stakeholders with a map that will enable them to traverse the new legal-ethical landscape of AI in healthcare. The issue of corporate accountability in AI-HealthTech is no longer a legal requirement it is a moral requirement in the digital age.