🔗 Share this article

Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your standard tech founder. After repeated occurrences of individuals distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to technology for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track abusers, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in offering BDSM services, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

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

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A study suggests that around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims lived with feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I expect respect, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she added. "The reality that those images could be then shared where I live 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 committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she described.

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

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she stated.

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

How Does the Technology Work?

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

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

This invisible watermark is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being edited and being re-captured with a different camera.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the platform you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

To date, one service has implemented 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 sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a firm that has 30 years experience in developing technology 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 deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a leading helpline commented she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's really important that the response 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 create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing tech facilitated abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

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

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share 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 responsibility is," she concluded.