Transitioning from Dominatrix to Tech Founder: A Unique Fight To Combat Revenge Porn

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your typical tech founder. Following multiple instances of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Just 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 marks quite a departure from her previous career in providing consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said 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 respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "The reality that those images could be then shared in my community or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she described.

"Some believe it's strange but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an accountant giving advice," she added.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I understand 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 been through it 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 many sleepless nights, investigation and "bugging people" who understand 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 accessed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the service 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 action can be taken.

Currently, one platform has adopted her tech and she's in discussions with many others.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists in the film industry, it is employed in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a different framework," said 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 solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

She expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

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

"When that guilt is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's crucial that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy 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 integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her youth that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It took so long, too long for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that without consent and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she concluded.