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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is far from your typical tech founder. Following multiple occurrences of clients leaking her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to take action" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify perpetrators, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

This represents a significant shift from her previous career in providing BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study suggests that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims endured feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a saucy picture 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 negotiable," she added. "The fact 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 a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she said.

"Some believe it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she remarked.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I know that it's unconventional, 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 loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she stated.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after a lot of late nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social networks and websites.

When an image is viewed by a user, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being re-captured with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the platform you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

To date, one platform has implemented her tech and she's in discussions with many others.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists in Hollywood, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a firm that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a support service commented she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse caused for victims.

"When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy 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 integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later shape her advocacy work.

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

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send 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 blame is," she concluded.