🔗 Share this article Transitioning from Professional Dominatrix to Tech Founder: A Unique Battle Against Intimate Image Abuse Madelaine Thomas says her personal experience of having her private photos leaked gives her a distinct perspective as a technology entrepreneur. BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your average tech founder. After repeated occurrences of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to take action" and turned to technology for a solution. "These were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," said Madelaine. Madelaine has won multiple accolades such as the Innovation in Tech Safety award at a prominent safety summit. Little over a year since launching her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify perpetrators, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year. This marks a significant shift from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of kink and bondage. A Widespread Issue Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with offenders facing up to two years in prison. It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis. Madelaine, 37, said survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted. "I demand dignity, 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 then shared in my community or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse." Madelaine hopes her tech will deter potential individuals from sharing photos without consent. A Unique Journey Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, primarily 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, offering my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she said. "Some believe it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an accountant giving advice," she remarked. She welcomes being a unique figure 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 required someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she explained. She insisted she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after many late nights, investigation and "bugging people" who understand tech. Understanding the Tech Solution Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people share images, for instance dating apps, social networks and websites. When an image is accessed 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 survive screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera. It ensures that if you discover your image has been shared without your consent, providing the service you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details 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 many others. An Established Method for a New Purpose "The system already exists in the film industry, it is employed in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a different framework," explained Madelaine. "And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a company 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 added. She said she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be perpetrators. Changing the Narrative An expert from a support service said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse inflicted on victims. "When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the support somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she emphasized. She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response." Both women have been victims of having their private photos shared without their consent. TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work. "It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess. She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess. "But it is a crime to circulate that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she concluded.