From Professional Dominatrix to Tech Founder: A Unique Fight To Combat Revenge Porn

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your average startup entrepreneur. After repeated instances of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to take action" and turned to tech solutions for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Little over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to identify abusers, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in offering BDSM services, dominating clients in the world of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said survivors lived with shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I demand dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"Some believe it's unusual 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 world of tech. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after many late nights, research and "bugging people" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

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 accessed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the service you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

Currently, one service has implemented her tech and she's in talks with several more.

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system already exists in Hollywood, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has 30 years experience in tech development 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 deterrent to potential perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a support service commented she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, 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 solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in a state of undress were shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, 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 survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," said Jess.

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