Legal Liability for Operating a P2P Discovery Server

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Since the bootstrap server receives and stores peer-discovery records on behalf of users, you may be treated as an “intermediary” under Section 2(1)(w) of the Information Technology Act, 2000. Conditional safe-harbour protection under Section 79 would ordinarily be available, provided you neither initiate communications nor select recipients or modify transmitted information, and you observe the prescribed due diligence. However, open-source status is not a complete immunity. Safe harbour may be lost if you actively facilitate illegal use, design or market the network specifically for criminal activity, retain administrative access to communications while falsely claiming otherwise, or fail to comply with valid court or government directions. The current Intermediary Rules demand various obligatory compliance checks. Since you do not possess message content or decryption keys, you should maintain verifiable technical documentation demonstrating that fact, minimise discovery metadata, secure the bootstrap database, publish an acceptable-use policy prohibiting unlawful activity, implement a mechanism to delist or block identified peers, and maintain a documented law-enforcement response procedure.

Advocate Sandipan Mohanty LawRato