“I knew that I was going to make a change; I just didn’t know how.”

Source: Glamourmagazine.co.uk

UK -“When I had my images taken, I thought shame on me,” says Madelaine Thomas, a sex worker and digital safety entrepreneur. As part of her work as a dominatrix, Madelaine has sent private intimate images to clients on various platforms for ten years, having maintained professional relationships built on trust. One day, that trust was broken.

See more and larger photo’s on: Glamourmagazine.co.uk

“I had sent out these intimate images to multiple people,” she tells Glamour. “I don’t know which one of those individuals had chosen to leak them.” Madelaine adds, “The images are still up. I can’t get them taken down, and I hate it, I despise it.”

Madelaine is the founder of Image Angel, a tool that uses forensic watermarking to track who has accessed images and videos on image-sharing platforms, such as Instagram or Snapchat, allowing for enhanced protection against image-based sexual abuse. Image Angel has received support from the likes of Jess Phillips, the UK Minister for Safeguarding, as well as being named in the government’s pornography review, and cited as a best practice by Ofcom.

With Image Angel, Madelaine is on the cusp of a digital revolution. She describes it as the “guardian angel” she needed when her private images were shared without her consent. “It was so profound that embarrassment, that shame, that I considered the worst option, the absolute worst,” says Madelaine, reflecting on that period of her life. “I considered ending my life because of what the shame could bring to my kids. And it took so long to get over that.”

For Madelaine, this shame was compounded by the social stigma surrounding sex work. “The reason I do my job as a dominatrix is to earn money for my kids in a way that suits me and suits our household.”

“I’m not ashamed of that,” she continues. “I think it’s fun, I feel empowered, and I know that I’m safe and that my clients are safe. Sending a couple of pictures to people on the internet for a bit of money is just a way for me to earn an income. And I’m cool with that. And everyone in my circle is cool with that.”

As the initial shock began to fade, Madelaine decided to take action. “I thought, I don’t want to live in a society where this is just par for the course, where this is just what happens,” she tells GLAMOUR. “It took years to get over it, but I knew that I was going to make a change; I just didn’t know how.”

For around seven years, Madelaine turned her attention to campaigning. She participated in roundtables and interviews that informed the UK’s 2025 Pornography review, spoke out about financial discrimination against sex workers, and co-authored a piece on improving labour standards in the online sex industry. But Madelaine wanted to move quickly. “I knew I needed to do more, and I reached a point where I was exhausted by it all and thought to myself, ‘I just need a guardian angel’. I want to send that image safely. And I don’t think that’s too much to ask.” And so Image Angel was born.

Earlier this year, Madelaine attended Glamour’s parliamentary roundtable about image-based abuse. In one of the most memorable speeches of the evening, Madelaine handed out her Image Angel business cards, encouraging people to pass them around the room until one found its way back to her. She held up the business card and pointed out that, thanks to fingerprint technology, she could technically find out the name of every single person who had touched the card. Similarly, Image Angel utilises watermark technology to track who has accessed an image or video shared on a platform, serving as a powerful deterrent against image-based abuse while also respecting the victim’s autonomy.

Once Madelaine came up with the idea, she searched on LinkedIn for someone who could help make it a reality. “I emailed people at various tech companies and said, ‘Look, here’s the problem. Here are the current solutions. Please, can you help me or point me in the right direction to someone who can build this for me?’ Eventually, one person agreed. Over several months, we worked together to build this. It took so long, but it’s finally ready, it’s finally installed, and it’s finally protecting people.”