Kenneth Glad
Digital activity can leave fragments of information scattered across the internet. Individually they may appear insignificant, but together they can reveal a much fuller picture.
Around 1.4 million people aged 16 and over in England and Wales experienced stalking in the year ending March 2025, according to the Office for National Statistics. The estimate, equivalent to 2.9 percent of that population, comes from the Crime Survey for England and Wales rather than police-recorded offences.
That distinction matters because survey estimates capture experiences reported by members of the public, including incidents that may never reach police. The figure remains the latest available ONS estimate for stalking, with newer results subject to separate analysis.
The Crown Prosecution Service reported a record 7,168 stalking offences charged during 2024 to 2025. Its first Stalking Action Plan, launched on 24 March 2026, was designed to strengthen the way prosecutors deal with the offence as technology changes how unwanted contact, surveillance and harassment can occur.
Public information reveals more
Bestselling British novelist Adele Parks encountered the privacy implications while researching her psychological thriller Eyes On You. In an account published by the Daily Express, Parks described choosing a friend of a Facebook friend whom she had never met and examining only material that could be found publicly online.
The person had limited what strangers could see. Their Instagram account was private, while their Facebook page had been inactive for about three years. That still did not stop Parks from finding details about where they had studied, what they did for work, where they lived and information about close relatives.
Much of it surfaced through other people. Friends had posted photographs and left their own profiles open, giving Parks access to older pictures and details about places the person had visited.
Within a few hours, she had built up a surprisingly detailed picture of someone she had never spoken to. The exercise showed how information can remain visible online even when the person at the centre of it has made an effort to keep their own accounts private.
Parks said she never contacted the person and had no intention of entering their life. Her research was designed to understand how an obsessive character might gather information, rather than to demonstrate specialist investigative techniques.
When curiosity crosses lines
Not every search for another person online is stalking. People routinely check a date before meeting them, look through public profiles or follow someone whose clothes, home or holidays they like.
Parks argues that the situation changes when somebody keeps watching another person, tries to engineer encounters or refuses to respect their privacy. Information found online can make that easier, particularly when locations, workplaces and routines have already been shared publicly.
She also believes the word itself is sometimes used too casually. People joke about “stalking” celebrities or spending hours scrolling through somebody’s social media, even though real stalking can leave victims frightened and feeling watched in their everyday lives.
As Parks put it: “Stalking should never be normalised. It’s not funny and it’s not healthy.”
Women are more likely to report having experienced stalking. ONS figures for the year ending March 2024 show that 20.2 percent of women had experienced it at some point since the age of 16, compared with 8.7 percent of men.
Amy, the central character in Eyes On You, works as a waitress in a run-down noodle restaurant. Her life takes an unexpected turn when Oliver Harrington, a wealthy banker, walks in. Parks uses their relationship to explore how quickly intense attraction can become obsession.
Parks’s research for the book also changed the way she herself thinks about social media, particularly how much strangers may be able to learn from information left behind across different accounts.
Eyes On You was published in the UK on 27 August.
Sources: Daily Express, Office for National Statistics, Crown Prosecution Service, Adele Parks official website.
