🔗 Share this article

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

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year since launching her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has won several awards and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study recently.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the world of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is far from 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 impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims lived with shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an financial advisor giving advice," she added.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I know that it's bizarre, 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 been through it to understand the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

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

How Does the Technology Work?

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

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

This covert marker is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being edited and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, as long as 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 service has adopted her tech and she's in discussions with several more.

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use in the film industry, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a new system," explained 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 test it at scale," she continued.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims.

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

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents 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'," said Jess.

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

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