Rep Data launches “Second Shield” machine‑learning AI to combat AI-enabled survey fraud

As fraud tactics evolve, new solution keeps researchers one step ahead with predictive AI and autonomous defenses

NEW ORLEANS - July 9, 2025 - Rep Data, the industry’s leading provider of high-quality research data and fraud prevention solutions, today announced the launch of “Second Shield.” This new feature offers an adaptive layer of machine‑learning defense that sits between the company’s Research Defender fraud prevention software and live fieldwork. Leveraging a continuously refreshed 180‑day reconciliation warehouse, decision‑tree‑based models and anomaly‑detection techniques, Second Shield identifies subtle, multivariate patterns that signal fraud, and blocks them with 97 % accuracy.

“Competitors talk about AI; we’re putting it to work,” said Pat Stokes, Founder & CEO, Rep Data. “Second Shield transforms closed‑loop data from our DIY sampling platform, Research Desk, and Research Defender into predictive power, blocking the sophisticated, hard‑to‑spot fraud patterns that slip past the current limits of fraud prevention technology.”

Second Shield learns from every survey response that is later overturned in reconciliation. Each reversal becomes a labeled training point feeding a classifier that refreshes nightly across Research Desk and Research Defender traffic.

Second Shield draws on several dozen signals, such as CPI, open‑end length, device/OS, geo, timestamps, supplier, and historical behavior across nearly 200 sample sources. Second Shield can alert Rep Data's services team in the instance of a predicted‑fraud threshold, so that they're empowered to pause, switch, or price‑adjust supply before issues escalate. The upcoming phase will allow for Autonomous Threshold Tuning, meaning API connections will allow Research Defender to adjust, auto‑tighten settings, or swap suppliers in the background, protecting feasibility while maintaining quality.

Second Shield is an additional AI-based layer that adds to the already running unsupervised anomaly detection algorithms, identifying emerging signals and markers to the industry's most robust library of fraud identification definitions. 

Weekly jobs surface emerging fraud vectors, such as misconfigured IP addresses as a result of WebRTC, so fresh signals can be folded back into Second Shield within hours.

“Second Shield is a living system,” added Vignesh Krishnan, CTO, Rep Data. “The more data it sees, the smarter it gets, giving our clients a proactive edge in an arms race where yesterday’s tactics won’t win tomorrow’s battles.”

Rep Data’s Second Shield alerts are already happening behind the scenes for all of its Research Services customers. API‑driven autonomous controls are slated for later in 2025.