Where are you located? A lot of countries don't enforce laws - Switzerland, Poland, and Spain even permit torrenting for personal use. Third world countries are usually pretty safe.
What internet are you using? If you're on your own WiFi at home, a VPN is mandatory if you don't want nasty letters. But if you're doing it on, say, Macca's WiFi, you'll be fine. Bit of a dick move if a lot of other people are using the internet, though. It's also worth noting that some internet providers not only prohibit it, but also detect any BitTorrent usage.
What are you torrenting? More obscure torrents are less likely to have bots scanning for IPs.
Are you seeding? Seeding and/or uploading torrents without a VPN is insanely risky, because not only does it expose your IP for longer, you're also committing the crime of sharing copyrighted content (which is prosecuted far more often than merely downloading), so unless it's a torrent that's close to dying, your best bet would be to leech and run.
I let me VPN lapse a day and my ISP reported 11 takedowns. They warned me (because they don't want to lose a customer). Blocklists aren't good enough anymore.
I use a private tracker and never get any mentions from my ISP because the studios aren't on the private trackers to search for IPs because they don't get invited and also would get banned for not seeding.
I made the mistake of using a public tracker to download something I couldn't find on my private tracker and got forwarded a DMCA notice the next day by my ISP.
In the UK I think it depends how much you torrent, how often, and who your ISP is. I'm pretty sure the big main ISPs all have to be vigilant and tell their customers off for doing it. I use a small ISP, and I set my upload speed to 10Mbits and my download to half my max bandwidth. I don't seed a library of stuff just whatever is being downloaded, then I stop. So yes. I'm a leech and have been for years. No VPN. However we only torrent when we can't get something on a service we already pay for so not more than 3 times a week.
tl;dr - in the UK use a small ISP and stay below the radar and you'll be fine.
I use it in croatia, but its so funny here since no one really cares. people around me torrent on daily basis for 20ish years and nobody got ISP letter. Even friends are laughing because I spend money on that lol. Its only 5€ a month and I use it for other things as well. Just get it if you can or 🤞
To answer your question in short , is it safely possible? No.
From your replies it seems your ISP is active against piracy. If budget is tight I recommend, use seedr.cc it gives you 2gb free and it torrents on your behalf, so you're legally safe. Also you can extend seedr.cc to 4gb as WELL without paying. Dm me if you want to know how.
I know it's not enough for big games and stuff, but most TV shows and movies you can find decent 1080p rips within that.
I want to add to this, if you want to stream from seedr, don't use their streaming option. instead, right click on download button, copy link, then paste in VLC.
Agreed, also the .part file can be played in VLC as well, it's the same thing as copy pasting the link in VLC though, but this way you can keep the file.
However, in the UK at least, the ISPs are required to log your activity and pass on to the relevant authorities if requested. Best to use an approved VPN to be sure.
I'd be curious how many account holders in the UK have actually been prosecuted for copyright infringement.
In nearly two decades with the same ISP (Telewest > Blueyonder > VirginMedia) I've had a grand total of two emails from them with no teeth in it, and still download what I want from public trackers to this day.
I get an actual letter from them? Yay, free toilet paper!
Same in France. It's legal to leech but illegal to seed. But it's easy for a beginner to get confused and seed without knowing, so we still do not advise torrenting to everyone
Why would it be illegal to use peer to peer technology, at all? I can understand making piracy illegal - I don't agree with it, but I understand - but making it illegal to torrent anything?