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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is far from your standard tech founder. After multiple instances of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and turned to technology for a solution.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

Just 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 earlier this year.

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in providing consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the world of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report suggests that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors lived with shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I demand dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact 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 an individual committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"People think it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an accountant providing a service," she remarked.

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

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after a lot of late nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people share images, for instance dating apps, social media and online sites.

When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being altered and being re-captured with a secondary device.

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

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed in live television 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 30 years experience in tech development so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a support service said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the response a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," 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 addressing technology-enabled 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 just 15 when photographs of her in her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced 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'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she concluded.