🔗 Share this article

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your standard startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of individuals leaking her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year after launching her company, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in providing BDSM services, working with clients in the world of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

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

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A report indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, 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 expect?'," she noted.

"I demand respect, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be then shared where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she described.

"Some believe it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she remarked.

She embraces being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she stated.

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

How Does the Technology Work?

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

When an image is accessed by a user, 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 screenshots, being altered and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the service you posted it on has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists in Hollywood, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

She said she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate 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 reinforced by a misinformed friend or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the support somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she concluded.