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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is far from your typical startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in providing BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said victims 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 consideration, 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 in my community or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she described.

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

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the flaws and the modifications 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, investigation and "consulting experts" who know about 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 user, it is automatically embedded 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 screen shots, being altered and being re-captured with a different camera.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the service you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology 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 new system," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating 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 said she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service said she had seen first-hand 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 guilt 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 leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because a single solution 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 shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her youth that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It took so long, 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 removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the victims to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

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