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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your standard tech founder. Following multiple instances of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year since launching her company, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to identify abusers, has won several awards and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

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

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims endured shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I expect respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "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 an individual being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she said.

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

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she stated.

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

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is viewed by a user, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker 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 re-captured with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared without your consent, as long as the service 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.

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

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 novel use and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

She expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

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

"If that self-blame is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'what did you expect?' 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 added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "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 solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around 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 required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she concluded.