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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your typical startup entrepreneur. Following repeated occurrences of individuals leaking her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year after launching her company, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has won several awards and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

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

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims endured shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she added. "The reality that those images could be then shared 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 someone committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade 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 of my own volition," she described.

"Some believe it's strange but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an financial advisor giving advice," 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 creator of a tech company, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged 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 withstand screenshots, being altered and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been shared without your consent, providing the platform you used 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.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists in Hollywood, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a leading helpline commented she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later shape her advocacy work.

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

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

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