TikTok, which allows users to create short videos, which often feature music in the background, has rapidly grown to more than 1 billion users worldwide. Its owner, ByteDance, was founded in China and has a large base in Beijing but is incorporated in the Cayman Islands. It is 60 per cent owned by global investors and has no member of the Chinese Communist Party on its board.

TikTok has said it would refuse to hand over data to the Chinese authorities, which can demand it under a 2017 security law. But in December, the company revealed its staff in the US and China had inappropriately obtained the data of users, including a Financial Times journalist, in order to analyse their location as part of an internal leaks investigation.

A high-level security review, examining privacy concerns about TikTok and other Chinese social media giants, will be handed to Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil in the coming weeks, following months of concern over Australian government departments having different policies on the use of the application on departmental devices.

In a statement on Thursday the company said it was disappointed by the UK move.

“We believe these bans have been based on fundamental misconceptions and driven by wider geopolitics, in which TikTok, and our millions of users in the UK, play no part,” it said.