The agreement will see the Data Quality Co-op add tools to The Link Group’s research quality assurance programme to identify fraudulent participants.

The data quality tools will allow The Link Group to use respondents’ prior records and quality history as additional signals when evaluating new survey participants.

Andrew Hunt, vice-president at The Link Group, said: “Today’s sample landscape demands a layered approach to data quality, and DQC gives us a level of visibility into our respondents that wasn’t possible before.

“Adding their fraud detection technology and participation history to our cleaning process helps us catch bad actors with greater confidence, and sharing that information back with DQC makes it easier for us and others across the industry to identify high- and low-quality respondents in future surveys.”  

Bob Fawson, chief executive at Data Quality Co-op, added that The Link Group was “using DQC to strengthen their own quality programme while contributing data that helps us build a better view of respondent quality across the industry”.