🔗 Share this article From BDSM Practitioner to Technology Entrepreneur: A Unique Fight To Combat Intimate Image Abuse Madelaine Thomas says her first-hand ordeal of having her private photos leaked provides her a distinct perspective as a tech founder. Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is not at all your typical tech founder. After repeated instances of clients distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for answers. "Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," stated Madelaine. Madelaine has won multiple accolades such as the Innovation in Tech Safety award at a prominent safety summit. Little over a year after launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently. This represents a significant shift from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM. The Pervasive Problem The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with offenders facing up to two years in prison. It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study suggests that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis. Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors lived with feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted. "I demand dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser." Madelaine hopes her tech will prevent potential individuals from sharing photos non-consensually. An Unconventional Path Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she said. "Some believe it's strange 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 technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, 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 flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she stated. She insisted she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of late nights, research and "bugging people" who understand tech. Understanding the Tech Solution Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social media and websites. When an image is accessed by a user, 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 screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device. It means that if you find out your image has been circulated without your consent, as long as the service you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken. Currently, one platform has implemented her tech and she's in discussions with several more. Proven Technology, New Application "This technology already exists in the film industry, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a different framework," explained Madelaine. "And we've tested 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 added. She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential perpetrators. Changing the Narrative An expert from a support service said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims. "When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's really important that the response a victim receives 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 really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response." Both women have experienced having their private photos shared without their consent. TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen 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 teens and 20s that would later shape her women's rights campaigning. "It required years, too long for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess. She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess. "But it is a crime to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.