Transitioning from BDSM Practitioner to Tech Founder: An Unconventional Campaign Against Intimate Image Abuse

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is far from your typical startup entrepreneur. After repeated instances of individuals leaking her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to technology for a solution.

"Those were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

This represents quite a departure from her background in providing consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the world of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with offenders risking two years in prison.

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

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors lived with feelings of humiliation. "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 expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she said.

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

She welcomes being a unique figure 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 technology firm, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she explained.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after a lot of late nights, research 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 social connection apps, social media and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker is encoded within the copy 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 platform you posted it on 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.

Currently, one service has adopted her tech and she's in discussions with several more.

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use in the film industry, it is employed in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a different framework," said 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 believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

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

"When that guilt is compounded 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 crucial that the response a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because a single solution 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 circulated within 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 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'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to willingly share an photo to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.