🔗 Share this article

Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your standard tech founder. After repeated instances of individuals distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to take action" and turned to technology for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her company, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This represents quite a departure from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, explained victims endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The fact that those images could be then shared where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily 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, giving my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she described.

"People think it's unusual but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an financial advisor giving advice," she added.

She embraces being something of an anomaly 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 tech company, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she explained.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, research and "consulting experts" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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

When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

This covert marker is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a different camera.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, as long as the service you posted it on 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 discussions with several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology 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," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has 30 years experience in tech development so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the response a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling 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."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her youth that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It required years, too long for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to willingly share an image to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to distribute that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she affirmed.