<\/p>\n
An emergency blue light phone located outside the John C. Hitt\u00a0Library allows students to immediately connect to a UCF Police Department dispatcher.<\/p>\n
Alejandro Romo<\/p>\n
For two years, the messages were harmless. By the fall semester of 2024, that changed.<\/p>\n
K, an undergrad student at UCF who requested her name be omitted since the police report is still pending, began to dread looking at her phone, as a former friend used Reddit posts and online messages to track and target her. What once felt like a normal connection turned into a source of constant anxiety, exposing a gap between UCF\u2019s official safety statistics and the often unseen reality of technology-facilitated stalking.<\/p>\n
Stalking is defined as \u201ca pattern of behavior directed at a specific person that would cause a reasonable person to fear for the person\u2019s safety or the safety of others; or suffer substantial emotional distress,\u201d according to the\u00a0Stalking Prevention, Awareness, & Resource Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n This definition of stalking is similar to\u00a0the university\u2019s definition, according to its Annual Security & Fire Safety Report<\/a>. According to UCF\u2019s Daily Crime Log<\/a>, in 2026, there were 12 documented reports of stalking on the main campus.<\/p>\n UCF has seen several cases of stalking throughout the years, with 47 in the 2022 academic year, 43 in 2023, 33 in 2024, and 26 in 2025, as stated in the annual safety report and confirmed by Amanda Sellers, public safety communications manager.<\/p>\n While physical safety measures like Victim Services<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0emergency<\/a>\u00a0blue light phones<\/a>\u00a0are established fixtures on campus, the rise of digital-based threats presents a different set of challenges for student protection.<\/p>\n Nolan Enghardt, freshman mechanical engineering major, believes that these measures, particularly the blue-light phones, could bring students a false sense of comfort in a digital world.<\/p>\n “You can never really know who’s on your page, who sees what and what they’re doing with it,” Enghardt said. “As much as the lights and the cameras clearly help with safety, I think in a situation where a lot of it was digital, I think in that sense, it is a little bit of false security.”<\/p>\n UCF Victim Services\u00a0is located in the Health Center. The service offers students round-the-clock, no-cost, confidential assistance if impacted by crime or harm, such as sexual assault, stalking or relationship violence.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Courtesy of UCF<\/p>\n While the crime log shows 11 documented reports of stalking on campus, the director of Victim Services, Dr. Laura Valle, said that the center sees higher numbers because many students choose confidential support over a police report.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are confidential, so someone can come and report their victimization to us and not report to the police,” Valle said. “I will say that we have higher numbers than law enforcement.”<\/p>\n “What is nice to see, though,” Valle continued, “Is that people are feeling ready and confident to report their incident to police so that they can start the criminal justice process.\u201d<\/p>\n Valle also addressed a common trend in what is seen from modern-day stalking, which is the idea that stalking is more facilitated through technology rather than in person, while that still occurs.<\/p>\n However, modern-day stalking still exists in the same capacity, even online, Valle said.<\/p>\n \u201cAlmost all of them are facilitated through technology,\u201d Valle said. \u201cSo, every year, as new, different types of technology emerge, we see that people who commit stalking are using different types of online platforms and online methods to stalk their victims.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n