🔗 Share this article

Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your standard tech founder. After multiple occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to identify abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in providing 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 exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, explained victims endured shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I expect dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she continued. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she said.

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

She welcomes being a unique figure 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 creator of a technology firm, but it required someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after a lot of late nights, investigation and "bugging people" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social media and online sites.

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

This invisible watermark is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being altered and being re-captured with a different camera.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the service you posted it on has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system already exists in the film industry, it is employed in live television 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 firm that has 30 years experience in tech development so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

She said she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

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

"When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled 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 images of her in a state of undress were shared around her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, too long for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess.

"But it is a crime to circulate that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she concluded.