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

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Just 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 exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in offering BDSM services, dominating clients in the world of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, explained survivors lived with feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I demand dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live 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 an individual committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am 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.

"People think it's unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an financial advisor providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she stated.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after many late nights, research and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social networks and websites.

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the platform you posted it on has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

To date, one service has implemented her tech and she's in discussions with many others.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed in sports broadcasting 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 partnering with a company that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

She expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a support service commented she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a misinformed friend or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the support somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool 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 just 15 when images of her in a state of undress were circulated within her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It took so long, too long for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image 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 concluded.