🔗 Share this article

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is far from your standard tech founder. After multiple instances of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to take action" and looked to technology for a solution.

"Those were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track abusers, has won several awards and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

This represents quite a departure from her background in providing consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the world of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors endured shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I demand respect, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The reality that those images could be then shared in my community or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she said.

"Some believe it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she added.

She embraces 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 technology firm, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

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

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a user, it is automatically embedded with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered and being re-captured with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the service you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within 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 several more.

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology is already in use in Hollywood, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a company 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 hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

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

"If that self-blame 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 deepened so it's crucial that the response a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated 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."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime from the survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to willingly share 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 affirmed.