Why is “profiling” a dirty word? Mind you, not racial profiling, just … profiling.
Do you start to twitch reading that:
“Jane was often chosen for market surveys, as she met the client’s consumer profile perfectly.”
“Our dating service will find your love match by profiling the preferences you have indicated.”
“Did you see last night’s episode of Criminal Minds on Channel 2? Those FBI profilers are amazing.”
“The Chameleon company was profiled in Security Daily magazine this last month.”
A lot of confusion and emotion swirls around the subject of profiling that leads both to its misuse, and to misunderstanding. The ACLU and other political groups are often in the news, up in arms about the (latest) incident of racial profiling. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, sure it does. But racial profiling is not security profiling. If you are looking for a terrorist, use racial profiling and you’ve making a mistake by ignoring whole segments of the population. By looking only at young men of Middle Eastern descent, for example, you miss a giant segment of the population, one of whom may be a terrorist or a mule for a terrorist.
Yet congressmen and lawyers and activists are busy arguing about, worrying over and dismissing the use of a technique that neither side has even bothered to clearly DEFINE. How can people argue positions around a method that is not understood? Here’s Chameleon’s definition:
(Predictive) Profiling is a method of situation assessment designed to predict and categorize the potential for inappropriate, harmful, criminal and/or terrorist behavior that leads to the deployment of procedures and actions necessary to confirm, reduce and/or eliminate such threats.
Basically, it’s a threat assessment.
And mind you, it’s more difficult to conduct security profiling than – as discussed above – racial profiling. To conduct the kind of effective profiling I am recommending requires security personnel who are well trained and understand the operational MO-method of operation of their adversary. It is the MO, not color or creed, which counts.
In any event, before we start fighting over security procedures and policies and condemning out of hand anything with the word profiling in its name, let’s first understand the term and what it really means.
Thank you for this most illuminating but brief article. I agree 100% with your statement about profiling. Unfortunately, in a “politically correct” America, we are losing or ignorance as well as potential threats if we do not employ the best tactics.