Transitioning from Dominatrix to Technology Entrepreneur: A Unique Campaign To Combat Revenge Porn

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your typical tech founder. Following multiple occurrences of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to technology for answers.

"These were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by an individual who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This represents a significant shift from her background in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the world of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

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

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, explained victims endured shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I expect dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a 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 confident and powerful, giving my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she described.

"Some believe it's strange but I view it similarly 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 crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She maintained 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.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social media and online sites.

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

This invisible watermark is embedded into 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 find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the platform you posted it on has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use in the film industry, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use 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 know that this is solid 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 deterrent to would-be perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

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

"If that self-blame is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's really important 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 really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing 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."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, too long for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of this crime from the survivors to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

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