Transitioning from BDSM Practitioner to Tech Founder: An Unconventional Campaign Against Revenge Porn

BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your standard tech founder. Following multiple occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to technology for a solution.

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

Just 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 exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in providing consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors lived with shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I demand dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she continued. "The fact that those images could be then shared in my community or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's someone being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's strange but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she remarked.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she explained.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" 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 networks and online sites.

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

This covert marker is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being altered and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the service you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it already exists in sports broadcasting 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 30 years experience in developing technology so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a leading helpline commented 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 professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing 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 integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, too long for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an image to someone," said Jess.

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