Human Profiling

Human profiling refers to the systematic collection, analysis, and inference of personal characteristics, behaviors, preferences, and identities of individuals from various data sources. With the rapid expansion of digital technologies, social networks, biometric systems, and pervasive sensing infrastructures, human profiling has become one of the most consequential research and application areas in information systems security. This survey provides a comprehensive review of the state of the art in human profiling, covering its fundamental definitions, primary methodological approaches, main application domains, and the serious privacy and ethical concerns it raises. We examine profiling techniques based on behavioral biometrics, social media analysis, crowdsensing data, physical surveillance, and network traffic, and discuss their respective strengths and limitations. We further explore how human profiling intersects with security—both as a mechanism to enhance security and as a potential threat to individual privacy. This survey draws on a broad body of international literature and includes references to work by the instructor, whose research encompasses steganography-based biometric authentication, crowdsensing-based emotion profiling, fake influencer detection in social networks, and threat assessment of critical infrastructures, all of which are deeply connected to the wider field of human profiling.