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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your standard tech founder. After multiple occurrences of clients distributing her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track abusers, has won several awards and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

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

A Widespread Issue

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

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

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a saucy picture 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 negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

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

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of late nights, research and "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social networks and websites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an invisible forensic watermark 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 secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the platform you used 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.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it already exists in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we are confident 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 preventive measure to potential perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

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

"When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the response somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling tech facilitated abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time 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. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she concluded.