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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is not at all your average tech founder. After repeated instances of clients distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to technology for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year after launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify perpetrators, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This represents quite a departure from her previous career 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 offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A study suggests that around 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, explained survivors endured shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, 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 a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described.

"People think it's strange but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an accountant giving advice," she remarked.

She embraces being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the changes that were necessary," she stated.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of late nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social networks and online sites.

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

This covert marker is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the service you posted it on has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology is already in use in Hollywood, it already exists in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested 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 deploy it widely," she added.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a support service said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's crucial that the response a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "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 solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she concluded.