MRops signs up for Peanut Labs’ Optimus fingerprint tool
Research operations firm to use fingerprinting tool to clean up its panels

US-- MRops (formerly MROperations) has signed a partnership with Peanut Labs to use its Optimus tool to remove duplicate and fraudulent respondents from online samples.

The Pennsylvania-based firm, set up last year, specialises in data collection and reporting for b2b and healthcare research – areas that attract survey fraud because of the high-value incentives paid to participants.

Ian Kiernan, MRops’ president and founder, said: “One of the main reasons we selected Optimus over competitive tools is the fact that it is an independent solution that we can apply to any survey using any sample source.” This means MRops can check the quality of data from any of its sample partners.

The firm is deploying Optimus on top of existing safeguards which include traps in surveys and systems to identify ‘speeders’ and ‘straightliners’ among respondents.

Optimus uses algorithms based on information that computers make available to online applications – such as hardware and software settings – to fingerprint them without using personally identifiable information. Bad respondents are then added to a database which all survey takers can be checked against.

Peanut Labs said 40 companies are now using the tool.