Transitioning from BDSM Practitioner to Technology Entrepreneur: A Unique Fight To Combat Revenge Porn

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your standard startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of individuals leaking her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to take action" and looked to technology for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

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

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A report indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community 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 someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described.

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

She embraces being a unique figure in the technology sector. "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 took someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social networks and websites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded 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 photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been shared 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 forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a company that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

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 commented she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance 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 somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled 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 integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were shared around her town. 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 tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of this crime from the survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess.

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