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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your standard tech founder. After multiple occurrences of clients leaking her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to technology for a solution.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were used against me by someone who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

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

This marks a significant shift from her background in offering consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the world of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be then shared where I live or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade 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 of my own volition," she said.

"Some believe it's strange but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an accountant providing a service," she added.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it took someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she explained.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many late nights, research and "consulting experts" who understand 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 viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged 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 screenshots, being altered and being photographed with a secondary device.

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

To date, one platform 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 Hollywood, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a firm 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 said 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 first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame 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 support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

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 experienced in her youth that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It took so long, too long for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the blame is," she concluded.