🔗 Share this article

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is far from your average startup entrepreneur. After multiple instances of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to take action" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

"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," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year since launching her company, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has won several awards and was recommended as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

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

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said victims lived with feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she added. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

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

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

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I know that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she stated.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after many late nights, investigation and "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people share images, for instance dating apps, social media and online sites.

When an image is viewed by a user, it is automatically embedded with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

This covert marker is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the platform you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system already exists in Hollywood, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a new system," 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 reliable 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 potential perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

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

"When that guilt is compounded by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her youth 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 was wrong'," recalled 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 image to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that without consent and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she concluded.