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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your standard tech founder. Following repeated instances of clients leaking her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to tech solutions for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were used against me by someone who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year after launching her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has won several awards and was cited as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This marks a significant shift from her background in providing consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators facing up to 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 UK female population is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, explained survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact that those images could be then shared in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing 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 empowered and strong, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

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

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the changes that were necessary," she stated.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able 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 implemented on any digital service where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the platform 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 legal steps can follow.

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 different framework," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a leading helpline commented she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this 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 somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled 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 images of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape 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'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," said Jess.

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