🔗 Share this article

Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your standard tech founder. After repeated instances of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to track perpetrators, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

This represents quite a departure from her background in providing consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the world of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, explained survivors 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 anticipate?'," she noted.

"I expect 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 where I live or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a 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 because I wish to," she described.

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

She welcomes being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she explained.

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

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on 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 automatically embedded 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 edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been shared non-consensually, as long as the service you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

To date, one platform has adopted her tech and she's in talks with many others.

Proven Technology, New Application

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

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a company that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we know that this is reliable 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 perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service commented she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional 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 emphasized.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because a single solution 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 her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her youth that would later inform her advocacy work.

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

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she concluded.