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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your average tech founder. After multiple occurrences of clients leaking her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Just over a year after founding her company, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has won several awards and was cited as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

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

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I expect dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community 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 someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

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

"People think it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an accountant providing a service," she added.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to know the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many sleepless nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people share images, for instance dating apps, social media and websites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This invisible watermark is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being edited and being re-captured with a different camera.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the platform you posted it on has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a different framework," explained 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 deploy it widely," she continued.

She said she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

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 reinforced 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 a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based 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 only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

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

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"But it is a crime to circulate that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she concluded.