From Professional Dominatrix to Technology Entrepreneur: An Unconventional Campaign Against Intimate Image Abuse

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is far from your standard tech founder. After multiple instances of individuals distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to take action" and turned to technology for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This represents quite a departure from her background in providing BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims lived with shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she said.

"People think it's unusual but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an accountant providing a service," she added.

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

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of late nights, research and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is viewed by a user, 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 survive screenshots, being altered and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the platform you posted it on has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

To date, one service has adopted her tech and she's in discussions with many others.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a company that has 30 years experience in tech development so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service commented she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's really important that the support somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in a state of undress were circulated within her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an photo to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to distribute that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she affirmed.