đŸ”— Share this article Transitioning from Professional Dominatrix to Technology Entrepreneur: A Unique Fight To Combat Revenge Porn Madelaine Thomas states her first-hand ordeal of experiencing her intimate images shared without consent gives her a unique insight as a technology entrepreneur. BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas represents far from your average startup entrepreneur. Following repeated instances of clients leaking her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to take action" and turned to tech solutions for a solution. "Those were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," stated Madelaine. Madelaine has won several awards such as the Innovation in Tech Safety award at a prominent safety summit. Little over a year since launching her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year. This marks quite a departure from her previous career in providing consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM. A Widespread Issue Intimate image abuse, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison. It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A report indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse each year. Madelaine, 37, explained victims lived with feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted. "I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's someone committing abuse." Madelaine hopes her tech will prevent would-be intimate image abusers non-consensually. A Unique Journey Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said. "People think it's strange but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an financial advisor giving advice," she remarked. She embraces being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to know the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she stated. She maintained she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many sleepless nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who understand tech. Understanding the Tech Solution Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social media and online sites. When an image is viewed by a user, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them. This invisible watermark is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being altered and being re-captured with a different camera. It means that if you discover your image has been shared non-consensually, as long as the platform 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 legal steps can follow. To date, one service has implemented her tech and she's in discussions with many others. Proven Technology, New Application "This technology already exists in Hollywood, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a different framework," said Madelaine. "We have validated it, we're partnering with a firm that has 30 years experience in tech development so we are confident that this is reliable 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 potential intimate image abusers. Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame An expert from a support service said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse caused for victims. "If that self-blame is compounded by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' 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, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing 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." Both women have experienced experiencing their private photos shared non-consensually. TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later shape her advocacy work. "It took so long, too long for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess. She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "There is no offence to willingly share an photo to someone," stated Jess. "But it is a crime to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the blame is," she affirmed.