🔗 Share this article From Dominatrix to Technology Entrepreneur: A Unique Fight To Combat Intimate Image Abuse Madelaine Thomas states her first-hand ordeal of having her private photos leaked offers her a distinct perspective as a technology entrepreneur. BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your average startup entrepreneur. After repeated instances of clients leaking her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to do something about it" and turned to technology for answers. "Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I have never met," explained Madelaine. Madelaine has received several awards such as the Tech Safety Innovation award at a major industry conference. Just over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently. This represents a significant shift from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the world of kink and bondage. A Widespread Issue The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with offenders risking two years in prison. It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by this form of abuse each year. Madelaine, 37, said victims endured shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said. "I demand respect, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community 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 someone committing abuse." Madelaine hopes her technology will deter would-be individuals from sharing photos non-consensually. 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 woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described. "Some believe it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she remarked. She embraces being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she explained. She maintained she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after many sleepless nights, investigation and "bugging people" who understand 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 online sites. When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer. This covert marker is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being altered and being re-captured with a different camera. It means that if you find out your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the platform you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow. To date, one platform has implemented her tech and she's in talks with many others. Proven Technology, New Application "The system already exists in the film industry, it is employed in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a different framework," explained Madelaine. "And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued. She expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers. Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame An expert from a support service commented she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims. "When that guilt 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 a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she stated. She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "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 integrated effort." Both women have been victims of having their intimate images distributed non-consensually. TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations 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 removing the stigma of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess. "However, it is illegal to distribute that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she affirmed.