🔗 Share this article

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your standard startup entrepreneur. After repeated instances of clients distributing her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for a solution.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has won several awards and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

This represents quite a departure from her background in offering consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the world of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

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

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

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I demand respect, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she remarked.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand 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 many sleepless nights, research and "consulting experts" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people share images, for instance dating apps, social media and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the platform you posted it on has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating 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 said she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the response a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

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 beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time 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 intimate image abuse from the survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an photo to someone," said Jess.

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