🔗 Share this article

Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your standard tech founder. After repeated instances of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in providing consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

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 not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, explained survivors lived with feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture 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 up for debate," she continued. "The fact that those images could be then shared in my community or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's unusual but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an accountant providing a service," she added.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that an individual 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 were necessary," she stated.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after many late 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 dating apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This invisible watermark is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the service you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

To date, one platform has adopted her tech and she's in talks with several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology is already in use in the film industry, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a new system," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has 30 years experience in tech development 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 preventive measure to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

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

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling 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 integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, too long for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the victims to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she concluded.