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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is far from your average tech founder. After repeated occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Just over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This marks a significant shift from her background in providing BDSM services, dominating clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "The reality that those images could be then shared where I live or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, 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 strange but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an accountant giving advice," she remarked.

She embraces being a unique figure in the technology sector. "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 understand the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many late nights, investigation and "bugging people" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people share images, for instance dating 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 covert marker is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the platform you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system already exists in Hollywood, it is employed in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a company that has 30 years experience in tech development so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a support service commented she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt 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 really important that the support somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She noted 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 technology-enabled abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, 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 eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an image to someone," said Jess.

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