🔗 Share this article

Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your average tech founder. After repeated instances of individuals distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to take action" and looked to technology for a solution.

"Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were used against me by someone who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in providing consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the world of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said victims lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact that those images could be then shared in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an accountant providing a service," she added.

She embraces being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I know that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the flaws and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, investigation and "consulting experts" 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 undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being re-captured with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the service you posted it on 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.

Currently, one service has implemented her tech and she's in talks with many others.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed in live television 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 company that has 30 years experience in tech development so we know that this is solid 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 expert from a support service commented she had seen directly the trauma and guilt this abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's really important that the response a victim receives 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 vital to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing technology-enabled 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 multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, too long for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that without consent and I think that should always be where the blame is," she concluded.