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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your average tech founder. Following repeated occurrences of clients leaking her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to take action" and turned to technology for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks a significant shift from her background in providing consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known 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 study suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by intimate image abuse each year.

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

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

"People think it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an accountant giving advice," she remarked.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she explained.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy 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 used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social media and websites.

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

This covert marker is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the service you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved 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.

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology already exists in Hollywood, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a new system," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a firm 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 believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service commented she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's crucial that the response somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated abuse, because no one tool 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 circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an image to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she concluded.