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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your average tech founder. After multiple occurrences of clients leaking her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for a solution.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This marks quite a departure from her background in providing BDSM services, working with clients in the world of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors lived with shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I demand dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she said.

"People think it's unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist 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 bizarre, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the flaws and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many late nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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

When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a different camera.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the service you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

To date, one service has implemented her tech and she's in talks with several more.

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology is already in use in the film industry, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a company that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a leading helpline commented she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse caused for 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 support somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an photo 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 affirmed.