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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your average tech founder. Following multiple instances of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to tech solutions for a solution.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Little over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

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

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, explained victims 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 expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she added. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

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

She embraces being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she explained.

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

How Does the Technology Work?

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

This covert marker is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared without your consent, 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 action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system already exists in Hollywood, it already exists in sports broadcasting 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 firm that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a support service said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame 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 added it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because a single solution 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 only fifteen when images of her in a state of undress were circulated within her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess.

"But it is a crime to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.