🔗 Share this article Transitioning from Dominatrix to Technology Entrepreneur: A Unique Fight Against Revenge Porn Madelaine Thomas explains her first-hand ordeal of experiencing her intimate images leaked provides her a distinct perspective as a tech founder. BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your typical tech founder. After multiple occurrences of individuals distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to take action" and looked to tech solutions for a solution. "These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," said Madelaine. Madelaine has received multiple accolades including the Innovation in Tech Safety award at a major safety summit. Little over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently. This represents a significant shift from her background in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the world of BDSM. The Pervasive Problem The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with offenders risking two years in prison. It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse each year. Madelaine, 37, explained victims lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said. "I demand respect, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The reality that those images could be then shared 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 someone committing abuse." Madelaine hopes her tech will deter would-be individuals from sharing photos without consent. An Unconventional Path Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, primarily 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, offering my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she described. "People think it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an accountant providing a service," she added. She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy 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 flaws and the modifications that needed to happen," she explained. She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after many sleepless nights, research and "consulting experts" who know about tech. Understanding the Tech Solution Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance dating 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 encoded within the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera. It means that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the service you posted it on has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken. To date, one service has adopted her tech and she's in talks with many others. 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. "We have validated it, we're partnering with a company that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added. She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential perpetrators. Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame An advocate from a leading helpline commented she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse inflicted on victims. "If that self-blame is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated. She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort." Both women have been victims of experiencing their intimate images shared without their consent. TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in a state of undress were circulated within her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later shape her advocacy work. "It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess. She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess. "However, it is illegal to distribute that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she concluded.