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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your standard tech founder. After repeated instances of clients distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to take action" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year since launching her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify perpetrators, has won several awards and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

This represents a significant shift from her previous career in providing consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

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

"I demand dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she added. "The reality that those images could be then shared where I live or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's someone being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described.

"People think it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an accountant providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after many late 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 share images, for instance social connection apps, social media and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being altered and being photographed with a different camera.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared without your consent, as long as the service you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

Currently, one platform has implemented her tech and she's in discussions with several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists in Hollywood, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a new system," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in tech development so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

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

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims.

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

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 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 integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, too long for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess.

"But it is a crime to distribute that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she affirmed.