How IPQS Enhanced Toluna’s Panelist Quality with Advanced Device Fingerprinting

Maintaining trustworthy survey data at scale requires more than preventing spam accounts. Modern fraudsters increasingly rely on stolen identities, virtual machines, emulators, and sophisticated account creation tactics to manipulate rewards systems and skew research results. Toluna partnered with IPQualityScore to strengthen fraud prevention and improve the quality of survey participation across its platform.

Background

Toluna is a global leader in digital market research, operating a large online community of survey participants who complete surveys in exchange for incentives and rewards.

While incentive-driven communities create valuable engagement opportunities, they also attract fraudulent activity. Bad actors frequently attempt to exploit survey systems through fake accounts, duplicate identities, virtual environments, and compromised user information. These tactics can significantly reduce data reliability and create costly issues for research clients who depend on accurate consumer insights.

The Challenge

Toluna needed a scalable way to distinguish legitimate participants from increasingly sophisticated fraud attempts while maintaining a smooth experience for honest users.

Key objectives included:

• Prevent fake or incentivized survey panelists from entering the platform
• Identify users operating through virtual devices and emulators
• Detect duplicate or coordinated account activity
• Identify accounts linked to compromised or stolen user information
• Protect survey integrity and improve research quality

The challenge wasn't simply blocking suspicious activity. Toluna also needed to preserve a frictionless experience for legitimate users participating in surveys.

The Solution

Toluna implemented the IPQS Enterprise Device Fingerprinting API to strengthen its fraud prevention capabilities and gain deeper visibility into user behavior.

The solution delivered multiple layers of intelligence to identify risky activity and provide greater confidence in user legitimacy.

Key Capabilities Included

High-Fidelity Device IDs

Persistent device identification with extremely low collision rates helped associate activity with unique users more accurately.

Advanced Virtual Device Detection

Detection for virtual machines, emulators, and device spoofing helped expose fraudulent environments.

Dark Web Intelligence

Additional enrichment and compromised credential signals helped identify suspicious user profiles tied to breached information.

Cross-Session Tracking

Persistent device signals enabled duplicate account discovery and identification of coordinated activity patterns.

Real-Time Risk Scoring

Behavioral, technical, and location-based indicators produced actionable risk intelligence instantly.

Implementation

Toluna deployed device fingerprinting across critical user touchpoints including account registration, logins, and active survey sessions.

Real-time device intelligence and scoring enabled fraud analysts to identify, segment, and investigate suspicious activity before fraudulent users could influence survey outcomes or collect rewards.

During deployment, IPQS onboarding specialists worked closely with Toluna to optimize thresholds and customize fraud detection rules that balanced security with user experience.

Results

78% Increase in Detection of Fake Panelists

Toluna uncovered significantly more fraudulent accounts created solely to collect survey incentives.

47% Increase in Detection of Compromised Users

Dark web intelligence helped identify users associated with stolen or breached personal information.

59% Increase in Detection of Virtual Device Activity

Device fingerprinting exposed emulators, bots, and spoofed environments attempting to manipulate survey participation.

Additional Benefits

• Improved Survey Integrity: Reduced high-risk responses before survey data was submitted.
• Device Clustering: Connected suspicious behavior across multiple accounts using persistent device identifiers.
• Real-Time Segmentation: Enabled immediate isolation of questionable responses for additional review.

Conclusion

By integrating IPQS device fingerprinting and threat intelligence solutions, Toluna significantly improved the quality and trustworthiness of its survey ecosystem.

The implementation enabled scalable fraud prevention without introducing unnecessary friction for legitimate users, resulting in cleaner research data, stronger customer confidence, and improved value for research clients.