Hawzah News Agency - Reports dating back to last year accused ByteDance of working with authorities in Xinjiang after it signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Chinese Ministry of Public Security.

MPs on the House of Commons business committee, who are investigating what role industry has in human rights abuses in the Uighur autonomous region, questioned executives about the issue on Thursday.

Elizabeth Kanter, UK director of government relations and public policy at TikTok, told MPs: "Because of the seriousness of the allegation, I've spoken to colleagues who run the douyin app in China and I can unequivocally deny the allegations against the company.

"ByteDance Ltd nor any of its subsidiaries produce, operate or disseminate any sort of surveillance equipment.

"The company does not have any personnel related to surveillance, so those allegations are false. I was first made aware of the allegations when I read the reports and saw the statements you have made."

TikTok is one of the world's fastest growing social networks has in October surpassed over two billion mobile downloads worldwide. It is the international version of Douyin, a Chinese app with similar functionality that was first released in 2016.

The app, on which users share short videos set to music, has faced criticizing in the past for allegedly censoring political content – though the firm denies this is its policy and has attributed high-profile instances of content being delete to errors by its moderators.

US president Donald Trump has said he will ban the app, and it has also been restricted in India in the context of a border dispute between the Indian and Chinese governments.

At the same committee hearing MPs also grilled representatives of clothing retailers on what they were doing to prevent cotton or fabric produced with forced labor of Uighur Muslims from entering their supply chains.