profiling

[proh-fahy-ling]

noun

1. the use of personal characteristics or behavior patterns to make generalizations about a person, as in

2. the use of these characteristics to determine whether a person may be engaged in illegal activity, as in

profiling

/ ˈprəʊˌfaɪlɪŋ /

noun

1. the practice of categorizing people and predicting their behaviour according to particular characteristics such as race or age

   racial profiling

Example Sentences

“This amounts to racial profiling,” said Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, during a press call hosted by the Not Above the Law coalititon.

From Salon

Centralized, attribute-based searching, whether by location, immigration status, tattoos or affiliations, creates the capacity for mass profiling.

From Salon

Department of Homeland Security denied targeting a school and also denied racial profiling.

From Los Angeles Times

As much as there was individual brilliance on the day from Grealish, manager Moyes deserves credit for profiling him in a way that helped to extract that quality.

From BBC

He said the government is not “extolling racial profiling,” but “apparent ethnicity can be relevant to reasonable suspicion, especially in immigration enforcement.”

From Los Angeles Times