🔗 Share this article

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your standard startup entrepreneur. Following multiple instances of clients distributing her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and turned to technology for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

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

A Widespread Issue

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

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, explained survivors lived with feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect respect, 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 used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's someone being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a treat 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 embraces being something of an anomaly 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 tech company, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the flaws and the modifications that needed to happen," she explained.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after many sleepless nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people share images, for instance dating apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

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

It ensures that if you find out your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the platform you posted it on has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use 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," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a firm that has 30 years experience in tech development so we are confident 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 perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a support service commented she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's really important that the support a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images 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 shape her advocacy work.

"It required years, too long for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to willingly share an photo 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 affirmed.