Transitioning from Professional Dominatrix to Tech Founder: An Unconventional Fight Against Revenge Porn

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your typical tech founder. After repeated occurrences of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and turned to technology for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were weaponized by an individual who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks a significant shift from her background in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

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

Madelaine, 37, explained victims endured shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I demand dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she continued. "The fact that those images could be then shared where I live or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's someone being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she said.

"People think it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an accountant providing a service," she added.

She embraces being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was managed 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 online platform where people share images, for instance dating apps, social media and websites.

When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

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

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology already exists in Hollywood, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we know that this is reliable 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 preventive measure to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a support service commented she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a misinformed friend or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's really important 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 bring about change, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in her underwear 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 women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, too long 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 survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she concluded.