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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is not at all your standard startup entrepreneur. Following repeated occurrences of individuals leaking her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

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

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

This represents a significant shift from her previous career in providing BDSM services, dominating clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with offenders risking 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 UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors lived with feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I expect dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"Some believe it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an accountant providing a service," she remarked.

She embraces being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to know the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she stated.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after many sleepless nights, research and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by 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 seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being altered and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the service you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

Currently, 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 is employed in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a new system," said 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 continued.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a leading helpline said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt this abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing technology-enabled 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 only fifteen when images of her in a state of undress were circulated within her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

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