🔗 Share this article Transitioning from BDSM Practitioner to Tech Founder: An Unconventional Campaign Against Revenge Porn Madelaine Thomas states her personal experience of experiencing her private photos shared without consent gives her a unique insight as a tech founder. BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your standard tech founder. Following repeated instances of individuals leaking her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers. "These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I have never met," said Madelaine. Madelaine has won multiple accolades such as the Tech Safety Innovation award at a major safety summit. Just over a year since launching 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 earlier this year. This represents a significant shift from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the world of BDSM. The Pervasive Problem The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with offenders facing up to two years in prison. It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis. Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims lived with feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said. "I demand respect, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact that those images could be then shared 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 an error on my part, that's someone being an abuser." Madelaine hopes her tech will deter would-be intimate image abusers non-consensually. A Unique Journey Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "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 described. "Some believe it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she added. She welcomes being something of an anomaly 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 required someone who has been through it to know the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she stated. She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after a lot of late nights, research and "consulting experts" who understand tech. How Does the Technology Work? Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social networks and online sites. When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them. This invisible watermark is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered and being photographed with a secondary device. It means that if you discover your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the platform you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow. To date, one platform has adopted her tech and she's in talks with many others. 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 novel use and a new system," explained Madelaine. "We have validated it, we're partnering with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added. She said she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers. Changing the Narrative An advocate from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse inflicted on victims. "If that self-blame is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she stated. She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated 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." Madelaine Thomas and TV presenter Jess Davies have been victims of having their private photos distributed without their consent. TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later shape her advocacy work. "It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess. She too is passionate about removing the stigma of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess. "But it is a crime to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she concluded.