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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your average tech founder. After multiple occurrences of clients leaking her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year since launching her company, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track abusers, has won several awards and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study recently.

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in providing BDSM services, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said victims endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I demand respect, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she added. "The fact that those images could be then shared where I live or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, 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 dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she described.

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

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

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people share images, for instance social connection 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 survive screen shots, being altered and being re-captured with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been shared without your consent, as long as the platform you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

To date, one service has implemented her tech and she's in talks with several more.

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use in the film industry, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a different framework," said 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 hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a support service commented she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing tech facilitated 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 circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations 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 shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

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

"But it is a crime to distribute that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.