🔗 Share this article

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your average startup entrepreneur. Following multiple occurrences of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for a solution.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track abusers, has won several awards and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

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

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, often referred to 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 approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said victims lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I demand dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, primarily 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 gift to someone of my own volition," she said.

"Some believe it's unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she remarked.

She embraces being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I know that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

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

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social media 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 embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the service you posted it on has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

To date, one service has implemented her tech and she's in talks with several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists in Hollywood, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a company that has 30 years experience in developing technology 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 expert from a support service said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's really important that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing technology-enabled abuse, because no one tool 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 images of her in her underwear were circulated within her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her teens and 20s 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 shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an photo to someone," said Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that without consent and I think that should always be where the blame is," she affirmed.