🔗 Share this article Transitioning from Dominatrix to Technology Entrepreneur: A Unique Campaign To Combat Intimate Image Abuse Madelaine Thomas says her personal experience of having her private photos leaked provides her a unique insight as a tech founder. Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your average tech founder. Following repeated instances of individuals leaking her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for answers. "Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I have never met," explained Madelaine. Madelaine has won multiple accolades such as the Innovation in Tech Safety award at a prominent industry conference. Little over a year after launching her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has won several awards and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review earlier this year. This represents quite a departure from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM. The Pervasive Problem The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison. It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis. Madelaine, 37, said victims endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted. "I expect dignity, 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 subsequently distributed in my community or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse." Madelaine aims her technology will prevent potential intimate image abusers without consent. A Unique Journey Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "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. "People think it's strange but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an accountant giving advice," she remarked. She embraces being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the changes that were necessary," she explained. She maintained she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who know about tech. How Does the Technology Work? Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social media and online sites. When an image is accessed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them. This covert marker is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device. It means that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the platform you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken. To date, one platform has implemented her tech and she's in talks with many others. Proven Technology, New Application "The system is already in use in the film industry, it already exists in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a different framework," said Madelaine. "And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued. She expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be intimate image abusers. Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame 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 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's really important that the response a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized. She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response." Madelaine Thomas and TV presenter Jess Davies have been victims of having their private photos distributed without their consent. 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 first of several incidents Jess endured in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning. "It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess. She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," said Jess. "However, it is illegal to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she concluded.