🔗 Share this article

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is not at all your average tech founder. After repeated instances of clients leaking her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks a significant shift from her background in providing consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the realms of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims endured feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she added. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

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

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she stated.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, investigation 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 media and websites.

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been shared without your consent, providing the service you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology already exists in the film industry, it is employed in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know that this is solid 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.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a support service commented she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse caused for victims.

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

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing technology-enabled 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 only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her youth that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an photo 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.