Transitioning from Professional Dominatrix to Tech Founder: An Unconventional Battle To Combat Revenge Porn

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your typical startup entrepreneur. After multiple occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to technology for a solution.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Little over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in providing BDSM services, dominating clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to 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 sex industry. A study suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims endured 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 dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she added. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live 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 committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she added.

She embraces being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on 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 seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being altered and being re-captured with a different camera.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, as long as the service you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

To date, one service has implemented her tech and she's in talks with many others.

Proven Technology, New Application

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

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in tech development so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt 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 added it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "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, not just support services, 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 shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

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

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