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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your average startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to technology for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year since launching her company, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has won several awards and was cited as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

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

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

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

"I expect respect, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift 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 giving advice," she added.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, 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 flaws and the changes that were necessary," she explained.

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

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people share images, for instance dating apps, social media and websites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the service you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has 30 years experience in tech development so we know that this is solid 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 preventive measure to potential perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a leading helpline commented she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse caused for victims.

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

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled 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 photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform 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 passionate about removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the victims to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she affirmed.