🔗 Share this article Transitioning from BDSM Practitioner to Tech Founder: A Unique Campaign To Combat Intimate Image Abuse Madelaine Thomas explains her personal experience of having her private photos shared without consent provides her a distinct perspective as a tech founder. Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is far from your average tech founder. Following repeated occurrences of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for answers. "These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," explained Madelaine. Madelaine has received several awards such as the Innovation in Tech Safety award at a major safety summit. Little over a year since launching her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year. This marks a significant shift from her background in providing BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of BDSM. The Pervasive Problem Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with offenders facing up to two years in prison. It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A study suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis. Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims endured shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said. "I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse." Madelaine aims her technology will deter potential intimate image abusers without consent. An Unconventional Path Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she said. "Some believe it's unusual but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an accountant providing a service," she remarked. She welcomes 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 tech company, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she explained. She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after many late nights, research and "bugging people" who know about tech. How Does the Technology Work? Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social networks and websites. When an image is viewed by a user, it is automatically embedded with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them. 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 different camera. It ensures that if you discover your image has been shared without your consent, as long as the service you posted it on has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so action can be taken. To date, one platform has implemented her tech and she's in discussions with many others. An Established Method for a New Purpose "The system already exists in Hollywood, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a new system," explained Madelaine. "And we've tested it, we're partnering with a firm that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added. She expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential perpetrators. Changing the Narrative An advocate from a support service said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse caused for victims. "When that guilt is compounded 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 emphasized. She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response." Both women have been victims of having their intimate images shared without their consent. TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in her underwear 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 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'," recalled Jess. She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the victims to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," said Jess. "However, it is illegal to distribute that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.