profiling

noun · Profiling

Profiling stays Profiling: the German text of the GDPR uses the English word as its defined term, Art. 4 Nr. 4 DSGVO, any automated processing that evaluates personal aspects of a person. Profilerstellung is everyday description, not the term, and the anchors hanging on the term, the objection right and the limits on solely automated decisions, hang on the word.

Which translation, when

Legaldefinition, englisches Wort im Gesetzthe term: Art. 4 Nr. 4 DSGVO defines Profiling, in the German text under that English name, as any form of automated processing of personal data used to evaluate personal aspects of a natural person, in particular to analyse or predict aspects such as work performance, economic situation, health, preferences, reliability, behaviour or location; the anglicism is the legal term, and paraphrases like Profilerstellung shift the text from the defined concept to loose description.

Rechtsfolgen am Begriffthe anchors: the data subject may object to profiling based on Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. e or f, Art. 21 Abs. 1 DSGVO, and to profiling for direct marketing absolutely, Art. 21 Abs. 2; decisions based solely on automated processing, including profiling, that produce legal effects or similarly significantly affect the person stand under the prohibition regime of Art. 22 DSGVO; and heavy profiling figures among the standard triggers of the Datenschutz-Folgenabschätzung, which has its own entry.

Why

Profiling is the rare case where the German legal term is the English word: the German text of the GDPR defines Profiling in Art. 4 Nr. 4 DSGVO as any form of automated processing of personal data that uses those data to evaluate personal aspects of a natural person, in particular to analyse or predict aspects such as work performance, economic situation, health, personal preferences, reliability, behaviour, location or movements. The definition has three load-bearing pieces: the processing is automated, it works on personal data, and its point is evaluation, analysing or predicting the person. A human assessment on a file is not Profiling in the defined sense, and a translation that softens the term to Profilerstellung or Erstellung von Profilen moves the sentence from the defined concept to everyday description, in which the legal anchors lose their hook. Those anchors are the point of keeping the word: the data subject can object to profiling resting on Art. 6 Abs. 1 lit. e or f, Art. 21 Abs. 1 DSGVO, and to profiling for direct marketing absolutely, Art. 21 Abs. 2; and decisions based solely on automated processing, including profiling, with legal effect or similarly significant impact stand under Art. 22 DSGVO, a prohibition with narrow gateways. Heavy evaluation of personal aspects also figures among the standard triggers of the impact-assessment duty, treated in the entry on the Datenschutz-Folgenabschätzung. So the safe rendering keeps Profiling as the term, reserves Profilerstellung for genuinely untechnical prose, and checks that objection and automated-decision language stays bolted to the defined word.

Typical mistakes

The German statutory term is the English word Profiling, so Profilerstellung and Erstellung von Profilen read as description, not as the defined concept.
The definition needs automated processing aimed at evaluating personal aspects, so calling any human assessment of a person Profiling stretches the term beyond Art. 4 Nr. 4 DSGVO.
Objection and the limits on solely automated decisions attach to the defined term, so loosening the word in translation detaches the rights that hang on it.

What matters

Translating a privacy notice or an ad-tech clause on automated evaluation: the rendering should keep Profiling as the term of Art. 4 Nr. 4 DSGVO and leave the objection right and the Art.-22 limits on solely automated decisions attached to the word.

Authority

Art. 4 Nr. 4 DSGVO

What the machine misses

A machine translation keeps profiling as Profiling where the GDPR context is unmistakable, yet drifts to Profilerstellung or Erstellung von Profilen in freer prose; the drift replaces the defined term of Art. 4 Nr. 4 DSGVO with everyday description, and the anchors hanging on the term, the objection right of Art. 21 and the limits of Art. 22 on solely automated decisions, lose their hook in the text.

See what the machine does with this clause →

Examples

profiling	Profiling
automated decision-making, including profiling	automatisierte Entscheidungsfindung einschließlich Profiling
to object to profiling for direct marketing	Profiling für Direktwerbung widersprechen
to predict aspects of behaviour	Aspekte des Verhaltens vorhersagen