Users of Windows 10 are being banned from using certain torrents, after hardcore pirates have suggested that the operating system is sending private and identifying information back to Microsoft.

Some hardcore piracy sites have banned users of the new operating system from using their trackers, meaning that torrents — the most popular way of pirating films, music and other media — won’t work.

While there doesn’t seem to be any evidence for the most worrying claims, they have picked up momentum in the wake of genuine concerns that Windows 10 is spying on and tracking its users.

Pirates have claimed in statements that “Windows 10 sends the contents of your local disks directly to one of their servers”, and that Microsoft has been working with a company called MarkMonitor to identify people who are downloading from the internet.

The controversy initially began because of a line in Microsoft’s service agreement that allows the company to apply updates that will stop users “playing counterfeit games”, according to TorrentFreak.

Those concerns seem to overstate the amount of information that is being sent. Microsoft has been working with MarkMonitor for some time, using its technology to stop scams among other things.

Trackers are the servers that allow all of the computers downloading files using torrents to talk to one another, and allows them to find and request the files that they need. Those servers require staff to look after them, and it is those staff members that are banning Windows 10 computers from using the torrents.