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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your typical tech founder. Following repeated instances of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to technology for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in providing 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 criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors lived with shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she continued. "The reality that those images could be then shared in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described.

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

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I know that it's unconventional, 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 needed to happen," she explained.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, investigation and "bugging people" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people share images, for instance dating apps, social networks and websites.

When an image is accessed by a user, it is automatically embedded with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

This covert marker is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the platform you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

Currently, one service has adopted her tech and she's in talks with many others.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use in the film industry, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a company that has decades of expertise in tech development so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

She expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a leading helpline said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's crucial that the response a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling 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."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, too long for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

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