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

"These were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

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

This represents quite a departure from her previous career in providing consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

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

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I expect dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she added. "The fact that those images could be then shared 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 my mistake, that's an individual being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a dominant woman, 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 financial advisor giving advice," she added.

She embraces being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I know that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social networks and online sites.

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

This covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being edited and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared without your consent, providing the service you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system already exists in the film industry, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a new system," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a company that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

She said she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a support service said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse caused for victims.

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

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing tech facilitated abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"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 passionate about removing the stigma of this crime from the survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess.

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