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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your average startup entrepreneur. After repeated instances of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to technology for a solution.

"Those were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

This represents quite a departure from her background in providing consensual sexual encounters, working with 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 risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced 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 each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I demand dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she said.

"People think it's strange 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 world of tech. "I understand 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 experienced it firsthand to understand the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after many 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 share images, for instance dating apps, social media and online sites.

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

This covert marker is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being edited and being re-captured with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the platform you posted it on 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.

Currently, one service has adopted her tech and she's in talks with many others.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system already exists in the film industry, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has 30 years experience in developing technology 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 deterrent to would-be perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

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

"When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance 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 crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she stated.

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 tackling technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," said Jess.

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