🔗 Share this article

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your average startup entrepreneur. Following multiple instances of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year after launching her company, 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 marks quite a departure from her background in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said victims lived with shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will comment, '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 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."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she said.

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

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that someone 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 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 late nights, investigation and "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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

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

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

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the platform you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details 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 implemented her tech and she's in discussions 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," 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 test it at scale," she continued.

She said she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's really important that the support a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, adding: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because a single solution 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 only fifteen when images of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape 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'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse 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.