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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is not at all your average startup entrepreneur. Following multiple occurrences of individuals leaking her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and turned to technology for a solution.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

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

The Pervasive Problem

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 uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said survivors endured shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a private image 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 negotiable," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, 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 practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she said.

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

She embraces being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

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

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social media and websites.

When an image is accessed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the platform you posted it on has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

Currently, one service has adopted 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 different framework," said Madelaine.

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

She expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert 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 misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the response a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in her underwear were circulated within her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, too long for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an photo 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.