🔗 Share this article

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your average startup entrepreneur. After multiple occurrences of individuals leaking her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for a solution.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Little over a year since launching her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track abusers, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

This represents quite a departure from her background in providing BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, 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 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, said victims lived with feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "The reality that those images could be then shared in my community or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently 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.

"People think it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an accountant giving advice," she remarked.

She embraces being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," 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 know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social media and online sites.

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being altered and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared without your consent, as long as the platform you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology is already in use in Hollywood, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a support service said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt 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 guilt can really be deepened so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in a state of undress were shared around 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, 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 removing the stigma of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to willingly share an image to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.