🔗 Share this article From BDSM Practitioner to Technology Entrepreneur: An Unconventional Campaign To Combat Revenge Porn Madelaine Thomas states her personal experience of having her private photos shared without consent provides her a unique insight as a tech founder. Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is far from your typical startup entrepreneur. Following repeated instances of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers. "Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were weaponized by an individual who I have never met," said Madelaine. Madelaine has won several awards such as the Innovation in Tech Safety award at a prominent safety summit. Little over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to identify abusers, has won several awards and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year. This represents quite a departure from her background in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage. A Widespread Issue The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with offenders risking two years in prison. It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by intimate image abuse on an annual basis. Madelaine, 37, said survivors 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 anticipate?'," she noted. "I expect dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be then shared where I live or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual being an abuser." Madelaine hopes her technology will prevent would-be intimate image abusers without consent. An Unconventional Path Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described. "People think it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an financial advisor giving advice," she added. She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she stated. She maintained she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after many sleepless nights, research and "consulting experts" who understand tech. Understanding the Tech Solution Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social networks and websites. When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them. This covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being altered and being photographed with a different camera. It means that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the platform you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken. To date, one service has adopted her tech and she's in talks with many others. An Established Method for a New Purpose "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 different framework," explained Madelaine. "And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in tech development so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued. She said she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be perpetrators. Changing the Narrative An expert from a support service commented she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse caused for victims. "If that self-blame is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the support somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized. 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 addressing technology-enabled abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort." Both women have experienced having their intimate images distributed non-consensually. TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning. "It took so long, too long for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' 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 consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess. "However, it is illegal to circulate that without consent and I think that should always be where the blame is," she concluded.