From BDSM Practitioner to Tech Founder: A Unique Fight To Combat Intimate Image Abuse

Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is not at all your standard startup entrepreneur. After multiple occurrences of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to identify perpetrators, has won several awards and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This marks quite a departure from her background in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the world of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she added. "The reality that those images could be then shared in my community or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she described.

"Some believe it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she added.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social media and websites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you discover your image has been shared without your consent, providing the platform you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

Currently, one platform has adopted her tech and she's in talks with many others.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a new system," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a company that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a leading helpline commented she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she concluded.