From BDSM Practitioner to Technology Entrepreneur: A Unique Campaign To Combat Revenge Porn

Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is not at all your typical tech founder. Following multiple occurrences of individuals leaking her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Little over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has won several awards and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

This represents quite a departure from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the world of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims endured shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a private image 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 continued. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community 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 committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me 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 strange but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an accountant giving advice," she remarked.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she stated.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was managed 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 used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social networks and online sites.

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

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

It ensures that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the platform you posted it on has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

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 brand new technology, it's just a new application and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a support service said she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame 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 crucial that the response somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her youth that would later shape 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'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to circulate that without consent and I think that should always be where the blame is," she concluded.