🔗 Share this article

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your typical startup entrepreneur. Following repeated occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by an individual who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year after launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to identify abusers, 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 BDSM services, working with clients in the world of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report suggests 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. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," 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 unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

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 confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

"People think it's unusual 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 world of tech. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many sleepless nights, research and "consulting experts" who understand 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 websites.

When an image is viewed 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 withstand screenshots, being edited and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been shared non-consensually, as long as the platform you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology is already in use in the film industry, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a firm that has decades of expertise 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 expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's really important that the support somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

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

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the victims 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 responsibility is," she affirmed.