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

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

Just over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This represents a significant shift from her previous career in offering BDSM services, dominating clients in the world of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, often referred to 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 around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, said victims lived with feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I expect respect, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she continued. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering 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 added.

She welcomes being a unique figure 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 know the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after many sleepless nights, research and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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

When an image is viewed by a user, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being altered and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the platform you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use in the film industry, it is employed 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 collaborating with a company that has 30 years experience in tech development so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a support service commented she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

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