BDSM practitioner Madelaine Thomas is far from your standard startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of clients leaking her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for answers.
"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I have never met," said Madelaine.
Little over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.
This represents quite a departure from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.
The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with offenders risking two years in prison.
It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.
Madelaine, 37, said victims lived with feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.
"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "The fact that those images could be then shared where I live 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."
Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she said.
"People think it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an financial advisor providing a service," she remarked.
She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable 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 understand the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she explained.
She maintained she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after many sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who understand tech.
Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social networks and websites.
When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged 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 withstand screen shots, being altered and being re-captured with a different camera.
It means that if you find out your image has been shared without your consent, providing the platform you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.
To date, one platform has implemented her tech and she's in talks with many others.
"The system is already in use in the film industry, it is employed in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a different framework," explained Madelaine.
"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a company that has decades of expertise in tech development so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.
She said she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be perpetrators.
An expert from a support service commented she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.
"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance 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 a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.
She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, 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 beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her advocacy work.
"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.
She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime from the survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an image to someone," said Jess.
"But it is a crime to distribute that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.
Elara is a passionate writer and photographer who shares insights on creativity and mindful living through engaging storytelling.
