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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your typical startup entrepreneur. After repeated instances of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to take action" and turned to technology for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were weaponized by an individual who I have never met," said Madelaine.

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

This represents quite a departure from her background in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the world of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, often referred to 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 sex industry. A report indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims lived with feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image 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 added. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described.

"Some believe it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an accountant giving advice," she added.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, 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 experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she explained.

She maintained 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 understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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

When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

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

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared without your consent, 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.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology is already in use in Hollywood, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know 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 advocate from a support service said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling tech facilitated 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 shared around her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, too long for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an image to someone," stated Jess.

"But it is a crime to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she concluded.