A student at Beijing University is suing Microsoft, claiming that a utility used by the company to verify that customers are not running bootleg copies of its software violates his privacy.

In the suit, Lu Feng claims that Windows Genuine Advantage collects information about his computer use and personal data without his authorization. The suit was filed this week in the First Intermediate People's Court of Beijing.

Feng claims that Microsoft "could gather the computer information and personal information of the plaintiff through executing this program on a regular basis and sending it back to Microsoft Corporation online," according to a report on the case by the government run China Internet Information Center.

"Lu Feng thought that this program posed a great threat to the information safety of his computer and his privacy and prevented users from exercising their property rights toward their computers," the report said.

Feng is asking the court to order Microsoft to create a tool that would allow him to delete the WGA notification program, apologize to him in a national newspaper ad, and pay him $88.28 in compensation.

A spokeswoman for Microsoft in China told the country's official Xinhua news agency that the company "is fully committed to letting customers control their personal information."

Microsoft has previously conceded that WGA isn't perfect, and that the program has falsely reported that millions of users were running counterfeit versions of Windows. The company is facing a class action lawsuit in the U.S. filed by plaintiffs who claim WGA violates their privacy.