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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is not at all your typical startup entrepreneur. After repeated instances of clients leaking her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to technology for a solution.

"Those were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were used against me by an individual who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year after founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

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

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors endured shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

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

She welcomes 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 founder of a technology firm, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the flaws 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 many sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social networks and websites.

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the service you posted it on has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a company that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service said she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image 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 really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing technology-enabled 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 circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her advocacy work.

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

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that without consent and I think that should always be where the blame is," she affirmed.