From Dominatrix to Tech Founder: An Unconventional Campaign To Combat Intimate Image Abuse

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your standard tech founder. After multiple occurrences of clients leaking her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough 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," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year after launching her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This marks a significant shift from her background in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said survivors lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I expect respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she said.

"People think it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she remarked.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I understand 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 experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she explained.

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

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social networks and websites.

When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This covert marker is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being altered and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the platform you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details 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 talks with many others.

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we know that this is reliable 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 deterrent to would-be perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a leading helpline said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's really important that the support somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, too long for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she concluded.