🔗 Share this article

Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is far from your typical startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and turned to technology for a solution.

"These were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," said Madelaine.

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

This represents a significant shift from her background in providing BDSM services, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

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

"I expect respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "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 view it similarly to a nutritionist or an accountant providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the flaws 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 "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on 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 automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the service you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists in the film industry, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a new system," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we are confident that this is solid 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.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

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

"When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling tech facilitated abuse, because a single solution 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 photographs of her in her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, too long for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.