🔗 Share this article

Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your standard tech founder. Following multiple occurrences of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to technology for a solution.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year after launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This represents quite a departure from her background in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors lived with shame and stigma. "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 don't see why those are up for debate," she added. "The reality that those images could be then shared where I live or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described.

"People think it's unusual but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an financial advisor providing a service," she remarked.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she stated.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after many sleepless nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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

When an image is accessed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

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

It means that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the service you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology is already in use in the film industry, it is employed 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 decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a support service commented she had seen directly the trauma and guilt this abuse caused for victims.

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

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because no one tool 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 her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said 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 circulate that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she concluded.