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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is far from your average tech founder. After multiple instances of individuals leaking her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for a solution.

"These 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," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year after launching her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track abusers, has won several awards and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This represents quite a departure from her background in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the world of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said survivors endured shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture 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 negotiable," she added. "The reality that those images could be then shared in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described.

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

She embraces being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to know the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many late nights, research and "bugging people" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social networks and websites.

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

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

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the service you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology is already in use in the film industry, 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.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating 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.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a leading helpline said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because no one tool 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 only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the victims to the offenders. "There is no offence to willingly share an photo to someone," stated Jess.

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