From Professional Dominatrix to Tech Founder: An Unconventional Battle Against Revenge Porn

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is far from your average tech founder. After repeated instances of clients distributing her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to technology for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track abusers, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This represents a significant shift from her previous career in offering BDSM services, dominating clients in the world of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims lived with feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, 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, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she said.

"Some believe it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an financial advisor providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's bizarre, it's crazy 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 needed to happen," she explained.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after many late nights, investigation and "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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

When an image is viewed by a user, it is automatically embedded 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 withstand screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared without your consent, providing the platform you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system already exists in Hollywood, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a new system," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has 30 years experience in tech development so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

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

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service commented she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse caused for victims.

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

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated 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 only fifteen 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 advocacy work.

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

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an image to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she concluded.