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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is not at all your typical startup entrepreneur. Following repeated instances of individuals leaking her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for a solution.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the world of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, explained survivors lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," 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 beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, primarily 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 said.

"Some believe it's unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an accountant giving advice," she remarked.

She welcomes being a unique figure 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 tech company, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many sleepless nights, investigation and "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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

When an image is accessed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

This covert marker is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the service you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system already exists in Hollywood, it already exists in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a new system," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a company that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

She expressed hope she hoped 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 first-hand the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance 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 crucial that the response a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based 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 photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime from the survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she concluded.