pro‧fil‧ing /ˈprəʊfaɪlɪŋ $ ˈproʊ-/ noun [uncountable]

1. offender profiling British English the process of studying a crime, especially a murder, and making judgments about the character of the person who committed it

2. American English when people who belong to a particular race or group are stopped and searched, for example by the police or at airports, because the police think that they are more likely to commit crimes:
racial profiling

3. when companies collect information about people that they wish to sell something to

[TahlilGaran] Dictionary of Contemporary English ▲