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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your average tech founder. After multiple instances of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to take action" and looked to technology for a solution.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Just over a year after launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

This represents quite a departure from her background in providing consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as image-based abuse, 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 adult entertainment sector. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors lived with shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I demand respect, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live 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 someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she said.

"Some believe it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an financial advisor providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, 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 been through it to know the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she stated.

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

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people share images, for instance dating apps, social media and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

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

It means that if you discover your image has been shared without your consent, as long as the platform you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

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 the film industry, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development 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 potential intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a support service commented she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the support somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, 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 solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth 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 was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," said Jess.

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