🔗 Share this article

Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your average tech founder. After multiple instances of clients leaking her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to take action" and looked to technology for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track perpetrators, has won several awards and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This marks quite a departure from her background in offering consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the realms of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims endured shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I demand dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's someone being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am 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 said.

"People think it's strange but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an accountant giving advice," she added.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, 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 modifications that were necessary," she stated.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after a lot of late nights, research and "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social media and websites.

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

This invisible watermark is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared without your consent, as long as the platform you posted it on has the technology embedded, 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 service has implemented her tech and she's in talks with several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system already exists in the film industry, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a different framework," said Madelaine.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a support service commented she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse caused for victims.

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

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, saying: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled 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 only fifteen when photographs of her in her underwear were circulated within her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

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

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to willingly share an image to someone," stated Jess.

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