; sense of Congress (a) Findings Congress finds the following: (1) Minors engaging with internet-linked applications face heightened susceptibility to privacy risks and potential exploitation through those applications. It is crucial for parents and guardians to possess comprehensive knowledge about the applications being accessed so that they can make informed decisions to protect their children. (2) Many users are unaware of the country of origin of the applications they download and use, as well as the data handling practices of the developers behind those applications. This lack of transparency can lead to potential risks for users, including exposure to foreign government surveillance, data breaches, and privacy violations. Users have a right to know baseline information on the country of origin so that they can personally make decisions to mitigate the threat to their personal and biometric information. (3) The potential for foreign governments to access user data through internet-linked applications presents national security risks. These risks may include the collection of sensitive information, espionage, and potential influence over critical infrastructure. (4) Increasing transparency and providing users with the necessary information to make informed decisions about the applications they download can help protect consumer privacy and security. (b) Sense of Congress It is the sense of Congress that covered companies and developers already posses the information necessary to provide adequate transparency to consumers. 3. Public listing of country of origin of applications (a) Definitions In this section: (1) Application The term application means a software application or electronic service that may be run or directed by a user on a computer, a mobile device, or any other general purpose computing device. (2) Application store The term application store means a publicly available website, software application, electronic service, or platform provided by a device manufacturer that— (A) distributes