Dubai-based XRP Healthcare secured US approval for a digital wellbeing app offered in African markets which it stated offers much-needed assurances over data protection on a continent ripe for phone-based approaches.

The company achieved US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) accreditation, a standard involving the protection of medical details established by the country in the 1990s.

XRP Healthcare stated the upgraded status of its app offers assurances personal health data is stored on users’ devices rather than on its servers or the cloud.

Kain Roomes, founder and CEO of the company, said it is now able to offer Africans the “same privacy standards as New York or London”, handing control of health data to the app’s users.

XRP Healthcare’s app offers prescription scanning and the ability to picture visible symptoms and conduct a preliminary assessment using AI. In future, the company hopes to work with hospitals to enable patients to provide access to their medical records.

The company stated the app is tailored for “patchy internet, multiple languages and limited access to doctors”. The HIPAA accreditation could also boost an intention to list on the Canadian TSX Venture Exchange later this year which XRP Healthcare expects to accelerate a deployment of its AI systems in Africa.

In May, McKinsey analysts highlighted data protection as a risk to the broader potential benefits of AI-infused digital healthcare in Africa, though noted initiatives including tuberculosis diagnosis are already underway in South Africa and Uganda along with the technology’s potential to consolidate diverse health information.