o predict the future behavior of a person based on combinations of factors such as race, ethnicity, national origin, religious orientation, political affiliation, association with a specific social or political movement, geographic origin, and similar factors. The exact combination of factors, together with the values associated with those factors, applied in a profiling process will vary in relation to the type of future behavior the profiler is attempting to predict.
Criminal profiling typically relies on the use of multiple approaches, with the greatest frequency of use being (a) demographically-focused and culturally-focused profiling, and (b) trait profiling, (c) psychologically-focused profiling, and (d) behavioral profiling. Airport security profiling in part mirrors criminal profiling, but also includes applications of the CAPPS and CAPPS II systems. CAPPS refers to Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening Syrtem). CAPPS II, the latest version of the system, attempts to assess the security risk of every airline passenger based on data stored in commercial and government databases. The CAPPS system collects four pieces of information (full name, home address, home phone number, and date of birth) about each passenger from the airlines). That information is used to access additional data about an individual that is stored by private data-aggregation companies that maintain files on most residents of the United States to verify the person's identity. The enhanced information then is used to obtain any available information on a person that is stored in government databases (intelligence, law enforcement, and others) to assign a risk assessment score to each passenger. Risk assessment scores range from minimal to acute danger (Ghobrial & Irvin, 2004).
The latest wrinkle in profiling for use in airport security operations is referred to as "rational profiling". Proponents of rational profiling contend that the approach...