“System Information” profiles tab I was interested in what the “profiles” tab found in “system information” displays. Is it the same thing as “profiles” in “system preferences”?
Yes, System Information's Profiles page is a textual report of the profiles installed on the system and/or user, comparable to Profiles.prefpane but read-only and textual. You can view the textual report on Profiles using

system_profiler SPConfigurationProfileDataType