🔗 Share this article

Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is not at all your standard tech founder. Following repeated instances of individuals distributing her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to tech solutions for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

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

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, 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 sex industry. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, explained survivors lived with feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's strange but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an financial advisor giving advice," she remarked.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, investigation and "bugging people" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social media and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, 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 survive screenshots, being edited and being re-captured with a different camera.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the platform you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology is already in use in Hollywood, 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 developing technology 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 deterrent to potential intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's crucial that the response a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach 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 town. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," recalled 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.

"But it is a crime to circulate that without consent and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.