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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is not at all your average startup entrepreneur. Following repeated occurrences of individuals distributing her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

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

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A study suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors lived with feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I expect respect, 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 then shared where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional 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, offering my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she described.

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

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, investigation and "bugging people" 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 accessed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker 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 find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the platform you posted it on has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

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

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," 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 expert from a support service commented she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is compounded by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach 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 multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in her underwear were circulated within her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to willingly share an image to someone," stated Jess.

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