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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your typical tech founder. Following repeated instances of clients leaking her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Little over a year after launching her venture, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks quite a departure from her background in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as revenge porn, is a criminal offence 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 indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims lived with shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

"Some believe it's unusual but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an accountant providing a service," she remarked.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was managed 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 implemented on any digital service where people share images, for instance dating apps, social networks and websites.

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

This invisible watermark is embedded into the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the platform you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists in the film industry, it already exists in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has 30 years experience in tech development so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's really important that the support 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, adding: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling 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 her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the blame is," she affirmed.