1. Introduction
Mobile health applications (mHealth apps) provide innovative opportunities for self-management of health and well-being in ways that are deemed to destigmatise and improve health care access and affordability. Essentially, they are part of a broader digital infrastructure that facilitates personalised health management by leveraging data collection and analysis to offer users customised health and wellness recommendations. By reducing the need for physical assessments, remote care offers critical support to health care systems in many African countries, particularly in addressing the severe shortage of health care professionals – a gap often exacerbated by ‘brain drain’ – as health care providers migrate to wealthier countries.Footnote 1 These modes of care delivery not only alleviate pressure on overburdened health care infrastructure but also improve access to care for vulnerable patients, including those who face prolonged waiting periods for in-person services. Consequently, the attainment of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and Sustainable Development Goal 3, which aims for good health and well-being, may be accelerated.Footnote 2 Furthermore, the proliferation of health apps has gained traction, particularly those apps that offer predictive services, those that focus on the female body and those that offer self-management for chronic health conditions as their core features (Guo et al. Reference Guo, Liu and Prester2024; Mishra et al. Reference Mishra, Kaur, Vikram and Sharma2023).
In this article, I argue that the proliferation of for-profit consumer health apps in Kenya reflects deeper socio-legal entanglements that elude the protective reach of conventional consumer rights frameworks. Consumer vulnerability in this context is not incidental but structurally produced, and an often-neglected dimension in digital economy analyses, particularly within African health systems. Two interrelated dynamics underpin this development. First is the digitalisation-as-development paradigm, which recasts technological innovation as both a developmental necessity and an economic inevitability (Swan Reference Swan2012). This paradigm not only privileges market logics but also positions digital infrastructures as the cornerstone of health governance, legitimising public–private partnerships and donor-driven interventions that obscure accountability. In this process, dominant actors capitalise on historical injustices and transnational inequalities, entrenching extractive practices such as data harvesting and behavioural surveillance under the guise of developmental aid (Tyce Reference Tyce2020). Second, the drive toward Universal Health Coverage (UHC) provides a compelling policy narrative that accelerates digital innovation in health (Karamagi et al. Reference Karamagi, Muneene and Droti2022). UHC’s appeal as both a global and national objective conceals the neoliberal policy prescriptions that frequently accompany its implementation – policies that entrench private sector primacy, stratify access to care and reframe health as an individual responsibility rather than a collective right (Smithers and Waitzkin Reference Smithers and Waitzkin2022). Within this landscape, digital health apps emerge not merely as neutral tools, but as ideological instruments that promise efficiency and scalability, while facilitating the marketisation of health care. Together, these dynamics – digitalisation-as-development and the hegemonic framing of UHC – help explain the rapid expansion and normalisation of health apps in Kenya. These apps must therefore be understood not simply as technical artefacts but as embedded within a broader apparatus of capital accumulation, regulatory gaps and governance by algorithms (Lupton Reference Lupton2014). This ‘appisation’ of health reveals a neoliberal shift: from public provision to private innovation, from rights-based entitlements to consumer-facing solutions. In this context, the limits of consumer law rooted in neoliberalism and contractarian assumptions become evident. Rather than empowering users, these legal regimes often fail to account for the structural dependencies and vulnerabilities that emerge. This article foregrounds these vulnerabilities, examining how digital health platforms reposition consumers not as rights-bearing subjects but as data-generating users within a commodified health ecosystem. My aim is not to dispute the gains made by health apps; rather, it is to show how these apps operate within a poorly understood legal space bound up with a particular politics of vulnerability.
This article is structured in three parts. The first section presents a brief overview of the political economy of health apps in Kenya, providing context and mapping the impact of economic, political, legal and social issues on the development, distribution and usage of these technologies, and interrogating how donor funding, regulatory frameworks and neoliberal health reforms collectively facilitate a shift from public provision to market-based solutions. This section shows that access to health apps is shaped not by public need but by the imperatives of market-driven innovation and profitability, where health outcomes are subordinated to commercial viability. The second part examines how apps shape and cultivate digital health consumers, focusing on two emergent Kenyan health apps, Zuri Health and BYON8, that represent distinct but complementary archetypes within Kenya’s evolving digital health ecosystem. Using discursive interface analysis of the app’s claims, I show how narratives of convenience and personalisation are used to embed a sense of intimacy, which in turn fosters vulnerability. In the final part, I reflect on the capacity of consumer law to respond meaningfully to the harms generated by the rise of for-profit health apps. While consumer protection frameworks ostensibly aim to curb misleading claims, enhance transparency and ensure accountability, such interventions often operate within a legal and regulatory framework that leaves the structural conditions of harm intact. Rather than disrupting the commercial rationalities that underpin digital health platforms more broadly, consumer law tends to absorb these logics, framing harm in narrowly individualised terms and overlooking the broader sociotechnical configurations that render consumers vulnerable. This raises deeper questions about the normative boundaries of consumer protection and the extent to which private law can effectively mediate the tensions between profit and public health in increasing platform-mediated markets.
2. The political economy of health apps in Kenya
To understand how health apps re-shape health provision in Kenya, it is necessary to situate them within the broader political economy of digitalisation and health care. This section maps how donor funding, neoliberal reforms and public–private partnerships create the conditions for app-based health solutions to flourish, while subordinating public health objectives to commercial imperatives. Building on existing scholarship on the political economy of public health in Africa (Gilson Reference Gilson2019; Ichoku et al. Reference Ichoku, Fonta and Ataguba2013), this section offers a situated analysis of the political economy of health apps in Kenya. It foregrounds the structural asymmetries that shape the development, circulation and commodification of these technologies, attending to how global capital, regulatory vacuums and uneven infrastructural access converge to mediate who benefits from and who is excluded by these emerging health interventions. In this analysis, I approach political economy not as a static framework, but as a dynamic set of relations and incentive structures that configure the interactions between state institutions, corporate actors and emerging philanthropic capital – particularly the growing influence of so-called philanthrocapitalists in the governance of health app ecosystems. Following Haydon et al. (Reference Haydon, Jung and Russell2021), I trace how market logics, corporate strategy and entrepreneurial forms of social investment increasingly shape the design and deployment of digital health interventions, blurring the boundaries between public good and private interest. As many health apps operating in Kenya are developed by foreign corporations or sustained through funding from international donors, significant imbalances of power result.Footnote 3 These imbalances marginalise local consumers, who have minimal influence over the governance of their data, the design of these platforms or the priorities embedded within them. Additionally, this overview demonstrates how digital health infrastructures are instantiated in and through political settlements that, while reinforcing colonial structures, also reproduce existing inequalities (Natile Reference Natile2020; Smith Reference Smith2024). While digital solutions may be promoted as tools for health care access, they are entangled in ‘biopower’ structures that shape their distribution and impact (Ashuri and van Voorst Reference Ashuri and van Voorst2024).Footnote 4
Biopower according to Foucault is a form of power that focuses on the vitality of individual bodies and the biological regulation of populations through self-discipline, often framed in the language of individual responsibility. This paper however does not elaborate a Foucauldian analysis as many other scholars have done, such as Lupton and Sikka, who have examined how digital health can be analysed through the frameworks of biopolitics, biomedicalisation and neoliberalism, showing the intersections of these theories with digital health and their impact on social relationships (Lupton Reference Lupton2016; Sikka Reference Sikka2023a). Key to their analysis has been how health apps are often framed as tools of empowerment and self-optimisation but are deeply embedded in a neoliberal framework, in which health is commodified and users are perceived as consumers rather than patients. This view unsettles dominant narratives of consumer empowerment, exposing the contradictions at the heart of digital health governance as market-driven self-optimisation is constrained by opaque platform logics, data governance regimes and regulatory gaps.
What this means is that the relationship between information, independent decision-making and consumer empowerment is shaped by platform-mediated asymmetries in access, control and agency. Additionally, scholars like Sax, Miglitz and Helberger have underscored the inherent strains consumers face, such as the tension between empowerment and manipulation, when engaging in the digital economy in general and health apps in particular (Helberger et al. Reference Helberger, Sax and Strycharz2022). They argue that the digital economy contributes to consumer vulnerability due to data-driven choice architectures that nudge consumer behaviour, exploiting users’ trust and dependency both on health-related support and the health claims they make, creating a power asymmetry (Riefa Reference Riefa2022). All these factors lay bare how, through commodification, the digital economy re-articulates contemporary definitions of hegemonic health, in which health apps contribute to a larger biopolitical agenda, individualising responsibility for health while ignoring systemic factors that influence health outcomes (Sikka Reference Sikka and Sikka2023b).Footnote 5 Furthermore, contradictory neoliberal logic underpins digital infrastructures for health delivery. A core feature of neoliberalism is the privileging of private enterprise and the reduction in the capacity and responsibility of government or public services. In these ways, digital health in the context of neoliberalism shows the influence of powerful actors over investment and innovation in digital health and the capacity of the state or other actors to steer these processes in the public’s interest. In Kenya, this influence manifests in how UHC is promoted on one hand, while the push for digitalisation-as-development is deployed (Ndemo and Weiss Reference Ndemo and Weiss2017a, Reference Ndemo and Weiss2017b). Between these two paradigms, business opportunities arise.
Health apps in Kenya operate within an ‘infrastructural assemblage’ (Anand Reference Anand2020).Footnote 6 This assemblage includes the Ministry of Health, the Kenyan Government’s health ministry, which plays a crucial role in endorsing digital health programmes. Health start-ups and private technology firms continually emerge within the Kenyan digital health ecosystem, adopting varied paths toward implementation as they seek funding to scale.Footnote 7 Investors play a crucial role in shaping the trajectory of health-focused start-ups, influencing both the technologies they adopt and the business models they implement (Waweru Reference Waweru2023). However, this emphasis on profit frequently sidesteps innovations that could fulfil the needs of marginalised patients and underserved health care areas, ultimately undermining efforts to achieve health equity (van Doorn and Badger Reference van Doorn and Badger2021).Footnote 8 Beyond private investors, other key actors such as non-governmental organisations (NGOs), international donors and private health care providers including hospitals and clinics contribute significantly to the digital health infrastructure. Many private hospitals have introduced telehealth platforms integrated with mobile apps, offering services such as remote consultations, appointment scheduling and prescription management.Footnote 9 Most Kenyan health apps are owned by private companies, particularly start-ups and technology firms funded by venture capital or corporate entities. The government has engaged in public–private partnerships, collaborating with private firms to develop health apps while supporting them through policies, infrastructure and funding.Footnote 10 This development also points to the establishment of an infrastructural state that is facilitated by collusive partnerships between the state and corporate entities, fundamentally hinging on the exploitation and expropriation of Kenyan infrastructural labour (the sociotechnical). Some apps are owned by international companies, granting foreign stakeholders considerable influence over local health markets. Others receive funding from global organisations like the United States Agency for International Development and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, further embedding international interests within Kenya’s health app ecosystem.
2.1. Regulatory frameworks and gaps
The regulatory landscape exacerbates these challenges, with insufficient legislation on data privacy, patient protection and integration into the broader health care system. Key stakeholders, including the government, telecoms, international donors and NGOs navigate power struggles that often skew health priorities toward short-term donor-driven goals. The newly enacted Digital Health Act 2023 provides some oversight over the regulation of health apps, under its mandate to regulate digital health services en masse. It is doing so by creating a Digital Health Agency that will manage comprehensive health information, ensuring health data governance and overseeing privacy and confidentiality, as well as security for personal health information. E-health services are formally recognised, with specific provisions addressing telemedicine, electronic health records, mHealth and telehealth. Health app governance is likely to be situated within this regulatory framework, providing a basis for oversight and compliance. Before enacting the 2023 Act, other pieces of regulation provided partial oversight for health apps: the Kenya Standards and Guidelines for mHealth Systems,Footnote 11 Kenya Standards and Guidelines for E-Health Systems InteroperabilityFootnote 12 and the Health Sector Information and Communications Technology Standards and Guidelines.Footnote 13 The Kenya Standards and Guidelines for mHealth SystemsFootnote 14 provides standards and guidelines on designing, developing and implementing mHealth solutions to ensure interoperability, scalability and sustainability. It also outlines the principles, requirements and standards for the interoperability of e-Health systems in Kenya. The Health Sector Information and Communications Technology Standards and GuidelinesFootnote 15 provide guidance and a consistent approach across the health sector in Kenya for establishing, acquiring and maintaining current and future information systems and information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure that foster interoperability across systems. To fully harness the potential of digital health in Kenya, there is a pressing need for cohesive governance reforms, sustainable funding models and a robust regulatory framework that addresses systemic inefficiencies.
Ultimately, exploitation at a micro-level stems from macro-level exploitation shaped by aid-dependent political settlements, both nationally and internationally, which reflect colonial and capitalist logics entrenching global inequalities and implementing free-market ideologies that deepen health disparities (Behuria et al. Reference Behuria, Buur and Gray2017; Khan, Reference Khan2018). Donor organisations illustrate how powerful international donors shape both economic and institutional systems to align with their objectives; this influence extends to national policies, health care priorities and market structures. Within Kenya, these ideologies particularly exploit rural and hard-to-reach groups, reinforcing structural inequalities through the actions of powerful local and international actors. This activity broadly demonstrates how Kenya, as a corporate state, has appropriated its citizens’ knowledge and expertise to subsidise the development of infrastructural expertise, sometimes with global reach, while fuelling the financial mechanisms underpinning post-colonial infrastructural expansion and the profit-seeking it has facilitated.
2.2. Revenue models and market logics
Revenue is generated through three primary channels: in-app purchases, which include the sale of features, upgrades and subscription options within the app; paid-app revenue, derived from one-time purchases of the app itself; and advertising revenue, earned by displaying ads to users within the app. Consumers pay recurring fees to access these services, ensuring a steady revenue stream for the providers. However, this method raises important questions about transparency, consumer autonomy and potential exploitation through unfair commercial practices (Okune and Mutuku Reference Okune and Mutuku2023). This reinforces a form of economic enclosure, whereby access to essential health information or services is contingent upon continued monetary contribution.Footnote 16 The coercive potential of these arrangements lies not only in their opacity, where the cumulative financial burden is obscured at the point of contract, but also in their capacity to normalise commodified access to health. ‘Freemium’ structures and fee-for-service models replicate, within a digital environment, the segmentation and stratification characteristic of market-based health care, but they do so under the guise of consumer choice (Nieborg Reference Nieborg, Leaver and Willson2016). This approach is prevalent in apps focused on health monitoring or wellness management, through which users might access basic tracking for free but pay for detailed analytics or additional functionalities. This model helps attract a broad user base while monetising the more engaged users (Zou et al. Reference Zou, Sun and Fang2022). Fee-for-service models charge consumers directly for each service provided, including consultations, diagnostic tests or personalised health plans (Nicholls Reference Nicholls2016). This model mirrors traditional health care payment structures but operates through a digital interface, offering convenience and accessibility. Some health apps also generate revenue through e-commerce and affiliate marketing, either by selling health-related products like nutritional supplements, fitness equipment or health care devices or by leveraging their user base and promoting to relevant audiences. These platforms streamline the process of obtaining medicines, often at competitive prices, and integrate features such as prescription management and delivery services. In these ways, the contractual frameworks of private law serve as instruments for integrating spheres of social reproduction – here, health management – into circuits of capital. Furthermore, the incorporation of health-focused applications into broader payment infrastructures, as exemplified by Safaricom’s M-Pesa platform, illustrates the expansionary dynamic of capitalist accumulation described by Luxemburg. Here, the extraction of value operates on two fronts: first, through the monetisation of health services themselves; second, through the appropriation and commodification of personal and social data. Infrastructural actors transform these data flows into commercially valuable insights, thereby converting the intimate domain of individual health into a resource for market exploitation. Donovan and Park’s (Reference Donovan and Park2022) notion of ‘intimacy at a distance’ captures this paradox: a technologically mediated proximity to consumers that is, at the same time, a mechanism for abstracting and formatting life processes into exchangeable assets. In such a configuration, consumer law’s conventional emphasis on fairness and disclosure risks legitimating, rather than contesting, the deepening penetration of the commodification of health. At the heart of these dynamics are the commercial models that sustain health apps. In-app purchases, subscription schemes and data monetisation transform intimate health practices into revenue streams, embedding consumers in cycles of dependency while normalising commodified access to health.
3. The ‘appisation’ of health and the political work of consumer health apps
Building on this political economy, I turn to the broader sociotechnical shift in which everyday health care practices are being reconfigured into platform-mediated services. Here, I show how apps are not neutral tools, but actors in a wider assemblage of capital, governance and infrastructure that commodifies health and fosters dependency. The turn toward ‘appisation’ in health care within neoliberalism has intensified the medicalisation of everyday life, simultaneously broadening the conceptual boundaries of health and illness to encompass an expanding range of human experiences. Through what Srnicek refers to as platform capitalism, digital health platforms operate as intermediaries that aggregate users while extracting and monetising health data, and apps integrate health services alongside fintech and e-commerce, creating new dependencies on private infrastructure for public health functions (Srnicek Reference Srnicek2017). Extant literature exists on the conceptualisation of self-knowledge technologies in understanding health apps’ expanding self-surveillance, effectively recasting health as a data-intensive, individualised responsibility managed through constant self-tracking and feedback loops (Foucault Reference Foucault2008). For instance, Rose (1999) exposes how ‘technologies of the self’ coerce individuals into self-monitoring, aligning their health behaviours with capitalist norms that demand productivity and compliance. His concept of ‘responsibilisation’ illustrates how people internalise capitalist control, assuming the burden of self-surveillance and self-optimisation to serve dominant social standards (Rose Reference Rose1999). Zuboff extends this critique, revealing how self-tracking technologies commodify personal data for corporate profit, with technology companies harvesting individuals’ self-knowledge as they steer behaviour to increase consumer spending (Zuboff Reference Zuboff, Longhofer and Winchester2023). Latour’s actor-network theory further unmasks how devices like apps and wearables act as agents of capitalist control, shaping human behaviour and reducing health to a data point in the machinery of capitalist production (Latour Reference Latour2005). Lupton also critiques digital health, arguing that self-tracking technologies produce a ‘datafied self’, so that individuals, moulded by capitalist metrics and surveillance, are disciplined into constant health optimisation (Lupton Reference Lupton2014). These digital systems drive users toward continual self-optimisation by leveraging gamified incentives, feedback loops and goal-based tracking to produce the ‘quantified self’ (Lupton Reference Lupton2014). Such technologies emphasise prevention through continuous data aggregation, thus enforcing an ‘always-on’ model of self-discipline, which fosters a daily responsibility for health measurement (quantification).
Tracking all health apps in Kenya presents significant challenges. Research conducted for this article revealed that a substantial number of health apps introduced in the last fifteen years are either obsolete or dormant. Navigating this landscape of ‘digital litter’ – as Abdelrahman calls it – of inactive websites complicates efforts to assess the current state of health app offerings (Abdelrahman Reference Abdelrahman2023). App obsolescence is frequently due to inadequate maintenance (so-called ‘zombie apps’: alive in availability but dead in terms of updates and support) but this situation points to the temporary nature of investment and funding cycles, as well as, in Kenya’s case, the racialised and ritualised inequities that undergird standard government policies and funder relations (Kenya Techpreneur 2023; Okune and Mutuku Reference Okune and Mutuku2023) and the potential for declining enthusiasm from venture capitalists and donors.Footnote 17 Additionally, critical technology scholars have explored how entanglements between philanthropy, development and technoscience combine to solidify ‘structural holdovers from enduring imperial formations’ (Irani Reference Irani2015), and how digital infrastructures more broadly represent political settlements between private and state actors.Footnote 18 Add to all this the shifts in policy priorities such as the global funding directed toward app developers during COVID-19 which often reallocate resources, with funding diverted from other apps in favour of urgent initiatives. Hence, some health apps are deprioritised or abandoned entirely, and others may never reach market launch.Footnote 19 To show how these dynamics unfold in practice, the next section turns to two case studies: Zuri Health and BYON8, that exemplify different but complementary trajectories within Kenya’s digital health ecosystem.
4. Case studies: Zuri Health and BYON8
I analyse two specific for-profit applications, Zuri Health and BYON8. I focus on their marketing strategies as well as the implicit assumptions about their user bases as a precursor to the discursive interface analysis. This analysis allows for an examination of how these apps engage with key themes, including their core functionalities and health-related claims. Specific attention is directed toward the framing strategies within the apps’ marketing and social media content, aiming to unpack the implicit assumptions developers and companies make about their user bases. While such analyses cannot fully capture users’ motivations, as Lupton and Jutel (Reference Lupton and Jutel2015) suggest, they offer valuable insights into the narratives and discourses app providers employ to position their products within digital health ecosystems.
Both these apps’ mission statements and branding embody definitions of the normative and dominant conceptions not only of ‘good health’ – which Sikka defines as ‘a co-produced state of idealised expectations, performances, embodiments, and patterns of consumption dominated by gendered and raced technophilic knowledge regimes that reproduce regimented and coercive Western standards of health and well-being’ – but also techno-commercial constructs with attendant promises of convenience and ubiquity. Their claims often promise instant access to highly specialised health services, such as being able to see a consultant within thirty minutes without a preliminary diagnosis. Part of my inquiry is whether such apps, in their commodification of health, generate unrealistic expectations, a patient/consumer identity crisis and the ‘uberisation’ of health services (Davis and Sinha Reference Davis and Sinha2021).
4.1. Zuri Health
The first app under analysis is Zuri Health, a digital health platform which positions itself as a democratising force, promising ‘universal’ and ‘on-demand’ access to care. Yet its inclusive rhetoric conceals the structural exclusions and dependencies inherent in its model. For instance, its copy reads as follows:
‘We’re on a mission to provide the best universal health experience… Kicked off in January 2021, our journey isn’t just about healthcare – it’s about a vision coming to life. We’re all about quality, affordable, on-demand healthcare that’s as easy as a simple swipe. With our all-inclusive service, we’re here for everyone with a mobile device. No matter where you’re at, your health story, or social status, your well-being is the star of our show. Welcome to a mission that’s all about you!’
The copy makes several claims about its app’s utility and legitimacy. The terms ‘universal’ and ‘on-demand healthcare’ demonstrate a shifting of responsibilities to individuals, aligning with neoliberal health citizenship, in which access relies on digital literacy and mobile connectivity, thereby often excluding marginalised groups, and ironically equating universal health with a for-profit app. Additionally, the rhetoric of inclusivity (‘for everyone with a mobile device’) obscures structural inequalities and post-colonial contexts in which digital health models rely on data extraction and surveillance. Zuri Health seeks to democratise health care access, particularly for underserved populations. Through its multi-platform approach, including SMS, WhatsApp and app interfaces, it offers low-cost consultations, medication delivery and lab bookings. For instance, Zuri Health states, as part of its services, ‘Health 360 by Zuri Health’, claiming complete provision of health needs and access through all spheres, a form of soft biopower. This claim reflects Zuri Health’s mission to make health care widely accessible, catering to populations who may lack consistent Internet access or smartphones. Thus, Zuri Health aligns itself with a public health imperative by bridging systemic gaps and reducing barriers to essential services.Footnote 20
4.2. BYON8
The second app is BYON8, which adopts a contrasting but equally revealing approach, relying on artificial intelligence (AI)-driven diagnostics and gamified engagement. Its design not only nudges users toward continual self-monitoring but also commodifies intimacy through competition and reward structures. BYON8 is described as a ‘health technology company’ that offers an AI-driven digital health care platform, providing personalised health care services and diagnostics through a mobile app. BYON8’s stated goal is ‘to make high-quality healthcare more accessible, affordable, and equal by digitalising healthcare on an individual level’. Marketing itself as a ‘telemedicine platform that leverages AI-driven diagnostic tools and personalised health monitoring, offering users an integrated experience that includes symptom checks, mental health tracking, and virtual consultations’. This approach emphasises a data-centred, self-directed health management model, aiming to reduce dependence on traditional medical systems by fostering preventive care and individual health responsibility.Footnote 21 BYON8 employs a ‘gamified’ design strategy that not only encourages but also subtly directs user behaviour, which could be interpreted as a form of manipulation. The app integrates features such as user challenges, competitions, badges, rewards and avatar representations to incentivise engagement in health-related activities, including physical exercise and weight management (Marston and Hall Reference Marston, Hall, Novák, Tulu and Brendryen2016). These gimmicks, as Ngai analyses, represent an aesthetic category of ‘cute’ design elements that subtly coerce users to participate in systems prioritising engagement metrics over genuine health outcomes. This method is useful as it shows how apps are marketed in specific aesthetic categories. Additionally, by constructing a system in which users are motivated to pursue specific health behaviours through competition and rewards, BYON8 encourages sustained engagement and loyalty. Users are prompted to invite others to the app, sharing in rewards that can offset the costs of usage. This model reflects a broader strategy of commodification, in which the social value of health becomes interwoven with app-based incentives, ultimately reframing health behaviours as gamified, transactional interactions embedded within a profit-driven structure. This approach illustrates the influence of gamification on individuals’ behaviours, demonstrating that gamification can facilitate disciplinary actions as a game (Ngai Reference Ngai2020). Gamified health systems wield significant influence, primarily by enabling users to set and control personal health goals, engage in self-monitoring and experience self-reward mechanisms (Payne et al. Reference Payne, Lister, West and Bernhardt2015). These systems rely on feedback loops and incentives to reinforce user engagement, highlighting a core characteristic of gamified health apps: they are intrinsically centred on the individual’s self-regulation. In this context, gamification functions as a behavioural tool, leveraging personal incentives to drive health-related actions and to foster a sense of autonomy within structured, goal-oriented environments. A cybernetic feedback loop embedded in the app’s interface exposes users to consumer vulnerabilities by shaping their interactions, decisions and health perceptions (Hallo et al. Reference Hallo, Hanzis and Rowe2025). As the interface adapts over time, users become increasingly dependent on algorithmic processes that influence their behaviour, often without full awareness of how their data is processed or used. This gap creates information asymmetries in which individuals may lack the critical knowledge to assess the accuracy or limitations of the information they receive. Additionally, the shift from physical presence to connectivity as a defining aspect of subjectivity raises concerns about privacy, data commodification and autonomy, as users unknowingly internalise algorithm-driven recommendations. Therefore, the interface is not merely a neutral tool but also a dynamic system designed to sustain engagement, potentially nudging users toward behaviours that align more with the app’s economic interests than their well-being. Furthermore, algorithmic decision-making can reinforce existing biases in health care, making certain groups more vulnerable to misdiagnosis, exclusion or discriminatory treatment. Ultimately, by embedding users in a commercialised and data-driven health ecosystem, these apps raise critical ethical questions about how digital health technologies redefine agency, responsibility and access to care, necessitating greater scrutiny of their impact on consumer vulnerability.
Both Zuri Health and BYON8 make distinct yet complementary health claims. They show how health apps navigate the binary of individual empowerment and structural accessibility, revealing both the potential and limitations of digital health solutions within a socio-economic and regulatory context that increasingly places health management in the hands of the individual. Additionally, their marketing emphasises three primary claims related to health access and convenience, functionalities (AI capabilities) and personalised care. First, these apps assert that they provide users with direct access to health professionals, bridging gaps in health care access through telemedicine, virtual consultations and tools for health monitoring and tracking. Second, these apps highlight key claims: offering access to medical records, symptom checkers, medication reminders and integration with pharmacy and insurance services. Third, the apps promise improved health literacy by offering accessible and reliable health information through self-knowledge; cost and time efficiency through reduced travel and wait times; enhanced chronic disease management and preventive care; and an overall boost to user autonomy by customising treatment plans and notifications based on individual data. Together, these claims construct an image of health apps as cost-effective, accessible and ‘empowering’ tools for users. In this analysis, I draw on Lupton and Jutel’s critical examination of self-diagnosis applications, which interrogates the presentation strategies employed within app store ecosystems. Lupton and Jutel explore how developers frame these apps as essential, reliable and authoritative health tools – a rhetorical positioning designed to appeal to potential users by signalling utility and legitimacy (Lupton and Jutel Reference Lupton and Jutel2015). This framework provides a basis for analysing the methods through which health app developers construct perceptions of value and trustworthiness to drive user engagement. This approach is evident in BYON8 and Zuri Health, in which these ‘personal duty’ dynamics frame health management as an individual duty through features like symptom monitoring, remote diagnostics and gamified engagement. These tools, while broadening access, especially in resource-limited areas, underscore the commodification of health, reorienting self-care within a commercial structure. Viewed together, Zuri Health and BYON8 illustrate how health apps cultivate digital intimacies that foster consumer engagement while embedding new forms of vulnerability. This analysis shows how the empowerment rhetoric obscures structural exclusions that consumer law cannot address. This moves us toward the broader question of how apps construct the ‘smart patient’ as both empowered and exposed.
5. Digital intimacies and the production of consumer vulnerability
The case studies reveal how apps do not merely serve users but actively construct them as ‘smart patients’. By embedding intimacy into their design through personalised feedback, swiping for doctors and constant connectivity, apps foster dependence that blurs the line between health care and consumption. In this section, I examine how app users are constructed as smart health consumers through various forms of digital intimacies. In my examination, I build on Lupton and Sikka’s conceptualisations of apps as sociocultural artefacts (Elliott and Greenberg Reference Elliott and Greenberg2022; Sikka Reference Sikka, Elliott and Greenberg2022b, Reference Sikka2023c). They argue that apps are communicative agents because they ‘employ carefully chosen images and discourses to represent their use and function’. They do so in two ways: (i) they assume certain capacities, desires and embodiments; and (ii) they construct and configure them. Lupton contends that health apps are strategically designed and marketed to cater to specific user profiles and intended-use cases, often accompanied by various claims aimed at encouraging both downloads and continuous engagement – even though users may not always interact with or perceive these apps in those intended ways. This context raises broader questions about user agency, techno-determinism and health commodification (Lupton Reference Lupton2014). Similarly, Sikka argues that apps construct a particular demand for a health product in the case of BYON8 and Zuri as concierge personalised health that is ‘on-demand’, thereby promoting a normative ideal of what it means to have ‘good health’, as health is framed as attainable through specific consumer choices. This construction often relies on gendered and class-based assumptions of what it means to be ‘healthy’, especially in apps aiming to influence human behaviour/health-related behaviour (Sikka Reference Sikka2021). Furthermore, they argue that health apps may serve not only technological or consumer-driven purposes but also political functions, as they reinforce interests and established structures of dominance and authority. They assert that apps should be understood as active participants within ‘networks of meaning and power relations’, thus warranting critical examination, as these may reinforce consumer vulnerability as users become dependent on app-based health advice.
5.1. Digital vulnerability: intimacy and structural harm
The power dynamics embedded in apps are highly significant for debates about consumer vulnerability (Consumer Affairs 2004; Menzel et al. Reference Menzel Baker, Gentry and Rittenburg2005; Moschis et al. Reference Moschis, Mosteller and Kwai Fatt2011; Ringold Reference Ringold1995). The concept of vulnerability within consumer law generally posits that not all consumers possess equal bargaining power in the market. Consumers are no longer perceived as ‘average consumers’ or understood as a homogenous group; some require higher levels of protection than others (Cartwright Reference Cartwright2011). For instance, EU consumer policy enshrines in law what constitutes a ‘vulnerable consumer’, as outlined in the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. However, its approach to vulnerability is often deemed outdated and not particularly useful for digital consumers.Footnote 22 Some have argued that consumer vulnerability in the digital environment is indiscriminate due to the structural complexities and manipulative practices prevalent in digital markets (Riefa Reference Riefa2022). Consumer vulnerability is not the exception but rather the norm, as consumers face challenges unique to digital markets, such as data exploitation, dark patterns and unfair commercial practices designed to steer their decision-making (Luguri and Strahilevitz Reference Luguri and Strahilevitz2021).Footnote 23 Dark patterns refer to manipulative online design strategies that exploit behavioural biases to influence consumer choices, rather than outright coercing or deceiving users. Various laws define these practices as impairing users’ ability to make autonomous and informed choices. Scholars such as Brenncke emphasise that dark patterns typically leverage predictable cognitive biases – such as default effects, loss aversion and scarcity – to subtly guide consumers toward decisions that may not align with their best interests (Brenncke Reference Brenncke2024). Additionally, Riefa emphasises that vulnerability arises not just from personal characteristics (such as age or cognitive limitations) but also from the systemic nature of digital markets, in which disengagement and apathy are fostered through obfuscation and algorithmic manipulation. Furthermore, Miglitz and Sax (Helberger et al. Reference Helberger, Sax and Strycharz2022) highlight how digital platforms, particularly health apps, contribute to consumer vulnerability by creating data-driven ‘choice architectures’ that nudge behaviour in ways that benefit the platform, often without sufficient transparency or consumer protection. ‘Choice architectures’ refer to the frameworks in which choices are presented to consumers, influencing their decision-making processes. This system involves designing the context or environment in which individuals make decisions, using specific tools (such as default settings, ordering of options and prompts) that guide users toward choices without explicitly restricting alternatives. The aim is to shape consumer behaviour by structuring options to subtly nudge them, leveraging cognitive biases and environmental cues to encourage preferred actions, often enhancing outcomes for both users and providers (Johnson et al. Reference Johnson2012; Thaler and Sunstein Reference Thaler and Sunstein2008).Footnote 24 I extend these analyses to demonstrate how consumer vulnerability is further embedded through the exploitation of digital intimacies within health apps. First, in the context of health more generally, and digital health in particular, the designation ‘consumer’ signifies a relationship in which welfare is seen as a product for the consumer, managed by a case or care manager accountable to the state and their manager, rather than to their profession or those using the service. Conversely, a ‘customer’ signifies a marketisation of health care, wherein health care is treated as a commodity. Health care professionals become brokers, accountable to management or even a (health-tech) entrepreneur in the case of digital health apps. While these terms are conceptually distinct, they have tended to overlap in the literature on digital health apps, necessitating a focus on these discourses, as they highlight the unequal relationships within which health apps exist (Costa et al. Reference Costa, Mercieca-Bebber, Tesson, Seidler and Lopez2019). How then is this consumption safeguarded if we accept that health apps create products consumed by patients? What is evident is that health apps significantly contribute to producing a marketable narrative about health care that emphasises accessibility, security, safety, convenience and personalisation, reinforcing the perception that digital solutions can serve as adequate alternatives to Kenyan public health care. However, this shift toward digital health is not neutral; as discussed earlier, it also reproduces and reinforces existing gendered dynamics. This effect is particularly evident in the realm of maternal health, menstruation and fertility tracking apps, collectively known as femtech, which shape how women’s health is managed and understood within digital spaces (Kleinman Reference Kleinman2019; Kressbach Reference Kressbach2021; Lu Reference Lu2019).Footnote 25 I extend the theorisations of Lupton and Sikka, exploring how consumer vulnerability is embedded. As Lupton and Sikka have both argued, these apps operate through the commodification of affects oriented towards the desire to become fit, thin healthy or medicated resulting in the production and sustenance of health consumers (Sikka, Reference Sikka2022a).
While Thaler and Sunstein argue that vulnerability in the digital market is architectural, as digital ‘choice architectures’ are designed to exploit vulnerabilities, it is also posited that the vulnerabilities that consumers experience are intentional (Weinmann et al. Reference Weinmann, Schneider and Brocke2016).Footnote 26 In this section, I aim to demonstrate how consumer vulnerability manifests within the two apps (BYON8 and Zuri Health), drawing on the concept of digital intimacy. Intimacy here serves as a heuristic to explore the social, legal and technical relations at the core of digital environments. Berlant conceptualises intimacy as ‘the kinds of connections that impact on people and on which they depend for living’. Additionally, Stoler theorises intimacy not as a private domain of authenticity but as a realm saturated by ‘structures of dominance’ that appear distant and external (Berlant Reference Berlant1998; Stoler Reference Stoler2006). Health apps engender emerging forms of intimacy, consisting of technological, social and economic layers of meaning, particularly through the increasing impact of AI. For instance, the infrastructures of mobile telephony and digital health services do not diminish the intimate domain; instead, they mobilise it as a site for capital accumulation, necessitating ongoing monitoring, knowledge production and reconfiguration of its boundaries (Bernstein, Reference Bernstein2017). The work already undertaken by business models such as Safaricom, in cultural shifts toward ever-increasing use of mobile technology, app use and rising dependence on data-rich apps, has primed the Kenyan consumer as a ready market for mHealth apps.
Both BYON8 and Zuri Health discursively embed digital intimacies by framing health interactions as personal, accessible and continuous. The apps claim to use AI-driven tools to encourage self-monitoring, positioning users as active participants in managing their health through data collection and feedback loops. This framing cultivates a sense of personal investment in self-care, fostering an individualised connection to the app. Zuri Health promotes ‘on-demand’ care through multiple platforms (SMS, WhatsApp), presenting itself as a close, accessible ‘health companion’. Its language – ‘the doctor in your phone’ – as a form of concierge care, reinforces a feeling of proximity, suggesting personalised, responsive health care traditionally reserved for in-person care. Together, these approaches shift traditional patient–provider relationships into continuous, digitised connections, fostering dependence and personalisation by commodifying intimacy. The ability to engage in thirty-minute text consultations, receive tailored health insights and maintain ongoing digital ‘connections’ with a personal doctor cultivates a form of intimacy that mirrors the structure of a social media app (Piras and Miele Reference Piras, Miele and Collyer2015).
The ability to ‘swipe’ and select doctors from a digital health platform creates an idealised perception of health care professionals, shaped by consumer expectations rather than solely by medical expertise. This design feature encourages patients to choose based on aesthetic, social or personal preferences, reinforcing a curated image of what a health care provider should look like, rather than focusing purely on professional qualifications or clinical effectiveness. Both Zuri Health and BYON8 feature photographs of their doctors, allowing users to swipe and choose based on the doctor’s speciality. This system mirrors the structure, creating a more personalised and visually-driven decision-making process. It also points to a growing phenomenon of social media ‘medfluencers’ and their self-presentation. Doctors have needed to learn entrepreneurial skills to succeed in the health market, developing homogeneous strategies on social media and positioning themselves as medfluencers to engage consumers (Ng et al. Reference Ng, Thong, Tan and Teo2024; Rao Reference Rao2022). Therefore, selecting doctors or health care practitioners becomes akin to shopping for consumer goods. Swiping, as Elliott states, ‘is increasingly the only diligent work of construction that seems required to negotiate’ in this case, health care consumption (Elliott Reference Elliott2023).
Users are encouraged to form a close (even dependent) relationship with these digital health providers, enhancing the sense of constant, accessible support. This intimate digital proximity, while marketed as empowerment, subtly shifts users toward a model of self-responsibility and continuous engagement. The apps thus transform personal health into a consumable experience, framing care as an always-available service that caters to individual needs and preferences on demand. Both apps appear to create a seamless experience that prioritises engagement and user loyalty while subtly embedding users within a commodified health care framework that encourages dependence on the app as a health ‘partner’.Footnote 27 This approach reinforces not only personal connection but also the commodification of health care, where intimacy becomes an avenue for sustained consumer engagement. As outlined by Helberger et al. (Reference Helberger, Sax and Strycharz2022), digital consumer vulnerability arises when personal data and behavioural insights are systematically harvested and used to influence users’ choices, often exploiting their trust in the digital environment.Footnote 28 Digital health apps leverage these digital intimacies in which health management becomes both highly personalised and commercially driven, leaving consumers more exposed to potential exploitation. In these ways, health apps frequently blur the lines between consumer and patient, as well as between health care professional and provider, obscuring the division of responsibilities and the protections available. This ambiguity is exacerbated by the fragmented regulatory landscape governing health care in Kenya, where multiple regulatory bodies are involved. Laws designed to govern traditional health care services are often ill-suited to address the novel risks posed by health apps. These apps, functioning as intermediaries, facilitate transactions between consumers and providers but strategically avoid assuming responsibility for the quality or safety of the services rendered. Apps that connect patients to health care providers or offer health-related services, like Zuri Health and BYON8, operate within this legal grey area, causing information asymmetries.Footnote 29
6. Consumer law’s limitations
These dynamics bring into sharp relief a central question: how can consumer law respond to the structural production of vulnerability embedded in health apps? To address this, the following section turns to the Kenyan Consumer Protection Act 2012. While its stated objective is to promote the welfare of Kenyans by preventing unfair and deceptive market practices, its tools and assumptions reveal important limits when applied to the complex harms generated by digital health platforms.Footnote 30 This objective is reflected in the provisions of the Act on product liability and safety, which safeguard consumers against unfair business practices and misleading conduct in the marketplace. Violations of the Act entitle an aggrieved consumer to pursue both civil remedies and criminal sanctions.Footnote 31 Consumers suffering losses or injuries from unsuitable, defective or misleadingly labelled goods are entitled to seek compensation by filing complaints with the Competition Authority of Kenya or initiating court proceedings. However, as mentioned earlier, consumer protection laws in Kenya do not extend to digital markets; explicit regulation addressing the digital marketplace does not currently exist. Regulatory frameworks are highly fragmented, making it difficult to piece together how Kenya’s legislation would protect consumers in the digital economy (Malala Reference Malala2018). Consumer law, as a lens through which digital vulnerabilities may be remedied, can enforce transparency and accountability measures, particularly around the use of personal data and the representations of efficacy and safety in health apps. Specific remedies should include mandating clear disclosures regarding data use, imposing stricter standards for health claims and establishing regulatory frameworks to protect consumers from manipulative practices. Thus, consumer protection law can help mitigate the exploitation of digital intimacies by emphasising consumers’ rights to privacy, transparency and autonomy in their interactions within the digital environment. The design and operation of health apps are, as Sax states, ‘optimisation systems that optimise user engagement and risk being manipulative’ (Sax Reference Sax2021). Here, I will extend Sax’s analysis by examining how health apps in Kenya serve as sites of exploitation, exploring how consumer law may offer a legal lens to address questions concerning health consumers in this context and how it may provide remedies. By constructing (digital) health consumers and embedding digital intimacies within the apps, I focus on three ways consumer protection may remedy these vulnerabilities, using my analysis of Zuri Health and BYON8 and the information asymmetry in which developers know the quality of their product while consumers do not. The first area for consideration is addressing how health apps are marketed and whether intermediary doctors and health experts are involved; the second is the ambiguity in industry-wide standards and regulation; and the third is the lack of clinical validation for product safety and efficacy. The health app market in Kenya is both opaque and complex, as discussed, largely because these apps often fail to provide standardised, easily interpretable information about their efficacy. Furthermore, app stores typically do not require or prioritise the inclusion of efficacy information in the algorithms that determine how search results are presented to consumers, nor does Kenyan regulation demand it. This heterogeneous market is sometimes referred to as a ‘lemons market’. A lemons market in the context of applications denotes a scenario in which inferior-quality apps prevail due to knowledge asymmetries hindering the creation and acceptance of superior-quality apps (Akerlof Reference Akerlof1970; Fowler Reference Fowler2022). Furthermore, both Zuri Health and BYON8 use the language of ‘empowerment’ as a claim rather than ‘treatment’; this careful wording aids them in avoiding regulation (Simon et al. Reference Simon2022; Telemedicine 2020).
6.1. Health app marketing without intermediary doctors and health experts
In Kenya, health apps increasingly circumvent traditional health care structures by marketing directly to consumers without the involvement of certified health professionals, presenting both regulatory challenges and consumer protection concerns. This direct-to-consumer approach minimises the role of medical practitioners, often providing algorithm-driven or generalised health advice instead of personalised, medically-informed guidance. This shift can blur the lines between health information and medical treatment, potentially misleading consumers into overestimating the reliability or efficacy of these apps. The Digital Health Act 2023 in Kenya, although a significant legislative step, provides only limited regulation for many health apps that are categorised as ‘wellness’ tools rather than formal medical devices.Footnote 32 This designation often exempts these apps from the rigorous clinical validation required for medical devices, allowing them to sidestep essential scrutiny regarding safety and efficacy. Consequently, these ‘wellness’ apps may offer health guidance that lacks clinical oversight, leading consumers to rely on potentially misleading claims. The Kenyan regulatory approach, while progressive in some areas, remains relatively lax in enforcing standards that would ensure that consumers receive medically sound advice.
6.2. The ambiguity in industry-wide standards and regulations
While traditional health care products like pharmaceuticals and medical devices are strictly regulated, many health apps avoid these stringent requirements by positioning themselves as providing information rather than diagnostic or therapeutic services. Kenya’s current legal framework provides a foundation for regulating digital health but remains insufficient to fully address key issues such as misleading claims, subscription traps, dark patterns and the commodification of health data.Footnote 33 While existing laws touch on areas like data privacy and transparency, gaps remain in regulating manipulative design practices, forced continuity in subscription-based apps and opaque data-consent mechanisms.Footnote 34 To effectively protect consumers, Kenya needs more targeted regulations that ensure transparent subscription terms, address deceptive user interfaces and mandate clear disclosure of data-sharing practices. While the Draft Digital Health (Health Information Management) Regulations 2024 mark a significant step in formalising data governance within Kenya’s digital health ecosystem, they fall short of fully protecting consumers from exploitative data-sharing practices. Additionally the Regulations require consent for access to identifiable personal health data (Regulation 14(4)(b)) and prohibit disclosure for market research (Regulation 20). However, they do not impose a clear duty on digital health providers to proactively inform users when their data is shared, nor do they mandate opt-in mechanisms before such sharing occurs.Footnote 35 Critically, there is no express prohibition against unsolicited health marketing or behavioural profiling, despite evidence that consumers may receive SMS messages without explicit consent. This regulatory silence risks normalising data-driven targeting in contexts of low financial and health literacy, compounding consumer vulnerability. The Regulations also fail to require disclosures in accessible, plain-language formats, which limits the ability of users, particularly in rural or low-income settings to understand and exercise their rights. To enhance these protections, the Regulations should require pre-emptive, meaningful disclosure of any data-sharing arrangement beyond direct care; opt-in consent mechanisms for secondary uses and digital communications; and stronger restrictions on unsolicited marketing and data-driven nudging by third-party platforms. Such provisions would align with constitutional protections on privacy and consumer rights and support more equitable participation in Kenya’s rapidly evolving digital health economy. Strengthening enforcement mechanisms and adopting cross-border regulatory co-operation will be essential to closing these gaps and ensuring that health apps operate fairly, respecting user autonomy and safety. This ambiguity in regulation leaves consumers vulnerable to harm, as they may mistakenly believe that these apps are subject to higher levels of oversight than they are. In cases in which clear regulation is lacking, consumer protection laws can still hold companies accountable for implied warranties of safety and efficacy. Pressure in Kenya is likely to grow for establishing industry-wide standards to protect consumers using health apps. Apps may need to disclose their level of regulatory approval or clinical validation to ensure that consumers are not misled about the app’s level of oversight or effectiveness.
6.3. Lack of clinical validation for product safety and efficacy
Perhaps the most significant limitation of Kenya’s consumer protection framework is the absence of mandatory clinical validation for health apps. This gap creates a legal paradox: in principle, the Consumer Protection Act 2012 entitles users to protection from misleading or unsafe products, yet in practice, consumers remain exposed to exaggerated or unverified health claims. Globally, most digital health technologies follow a ‘launch now, validate later’ approach, entering the market without robust clinical testing. Kenya mirrors this trend. Developers are not legally required to substantiate the medical accuracy or effectiveness of their claims before releasing apps to the public. The result is that consumers, formally protected by law, are practically vulnerable. Apps can circulate freely with promises of empowerment, accessibility and personalised care, while the burden of discernment is shifted on to users, often those least equipped with the clinical or technical literacy to assess the legitimacy of such claims. In this way, the absence of clinical validation undermines both the right to accurate information and accountability. In principle, consumer law could be extended to require that health-related claims meet minimum clinical standards. Such a reform would close the loophole that allows health apps to escape scrutiny by presenting themselves as ‘wellness’ tools rather than medical devices. Yet even this intervention would only partially address the problem. Consumer law remains focused on discrete acts of misrepresentation or defective products, whereas the most significant harms of health apps arise from continuous engagement, data exploitation and behavioural manipulation. Taken together, these shortcomings illustrate both the promise and the profound limits of consumer law in responding to digital health harms. While the Act could be adapted to promote greater transparency, accountability and safety, its underlying design presumes empowered consumers and product-based harms. In the context of health apps where vulnerability is generated through the very architectures of engagement and the commodification of digital intimacy, such assumptions are inadequate. Without a broader re-imagining of its scope and purpose, consumer law will remain ill-equipped to address the systemic vulnerabilities of Kenya’s digital health economy.
7. Conclusion
This article has argued that health apps in Kenya, exemplified by Zuri Health and BYON8, are not mere technological tools but key actors in a complex sociotechnical and economic landscape that commodifies health and inculcates digital vulnerabilities. In a neoliberal, aid-dependent framework in which global actors exercise significant influence, these apps increasingly redefine health care access as a consumer product. The drive toward for-profit digital health solutions exposes users to vulnerabilities regarding the reliability of health advice, often under opaque regulatory oversight. Through engendering digital intimacies and claims of empowerment, these apps frame health as an individual responsibility, emphasising self-monitoring and on-demand access, which shifts the health care burden from public systems to private consumption. This shift necessitates consumer protections that can address the asymmetry in information, accountability and power between health app developers and users, ensuring that digital health advances align with the public good rather than reinforcing systemic inequities. As Kenya continues to pursue UHC, embedding consumer rights and regulatory clarity within the digital health sector is essential to balance innovation with ethical obligations to safeguard consumer welfare. While health apps offer opportunities for improved health care access and personal health management, they also engender significant digital vulnerabilities. It is also noteworthy that large commercial technology platforms such as Google and Apple, and telecommunications companies including Safaricom in Kenya, have continually shaped the digital marketplace, adding to the structural imbalances and inequalities emergent in the digital market. The promotion of health services without medical intermediaries, regulatory ambiguities and the lack of clinical validation for health claims underscore the necessity for robust consumer rights protections. Addressing these concerns involves not only clearer, industry-wide standards and strengthened regulations but also an acknowledgement of the socio-economic dynamics that shape digital health adoption. Ultimately, achieving a balanced approach that safeguards users’ rights and supports meaningful health innovations will be essential to ensure that health apps contribute positively to Kenya’s health care. While digital vulnerability is theoretically compelling, its translation into legal reform remains complex. With continued digitalisation, evolving standards of consumer vulnerability have failed to account for the broader infrastructural conditions that shape and produce new forms of digital consumer environments.
Acknowledgements
This research was made possible due to a Wellcome Grant Reference number: 224856/Z/21/Z There is no app for this! Regulating the migration of health apps in sub-Saharan Africa.
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