Letter to the Editor: A possible threat to data integrity for online qualitative autism research

Researchers are increasingly relying on online methods for data collection, including for qualitative research involving interviews and focus groups. In this letter, we alert autism researchers to a possible threat to data integrity in such studies: “scammer” participants, who may be posing as autistic people and/or parents of autistic children in research studies, presumably for financial gain. Here, we caution qualitative autism researchers to be vigilant of potential scammer participants in their online studies and invite a broader discussion about the implications of such fraudulent acts.