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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your standard tech founder. After repeated occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough 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 embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Just over a year after launching her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study recently.

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

A Widespread Issue

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

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, said victims endured shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be then shared in my community or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me 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.

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

She welcomes being something of an anomaly 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 took someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she stated.

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

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people share images, 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 embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered and being re-captured with a different camera.

It means that if you discover your image has been shared without your consent, providing the service you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists in the film industry, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a different framework," explained 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 reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a leading helpline said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's crucial that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

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 youth that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It took so long, too long for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to willingly share an image to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that without consent and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.