From Professional Dominatrix to Technology Entrepreneur: A Unique Battle To Combat Revenge Porn

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

"Those were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has won several awards and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study recently.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, explained survivors lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, '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 fail to understand why those are negotiable," 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 beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a woman in control, 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 unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she added.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I know that it's bizarre, it's remarkable 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 flaws 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 late nights, research and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

This covert marker is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being edited and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared without your consent, as long as the service you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed 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 partnering with a firm that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a leading helpline commented she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, adding: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to willingly share an photo to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the blame is," she affirmed.