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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your average startup entrepreneur. Following multiple occurrences of individuals distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to take action" and turned to technology for a solution.

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

Just over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to track perpetrators, has won several awards and was recommended as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks a significant shift from her background in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims endured shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she continued. "The fact 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 my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she said.

"People think it's strange but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an accountant providing a service," she remarked.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This covert marker is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the service you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

To date, one platform has adopted her tech and she's in discussions with several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use in the film industry, it is employed in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering 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 added.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

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

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling tech facilitated abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later shape 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'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an image to someone," said Jess.

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