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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your average startup entrepreneur. Following repeated occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to take action" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

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

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

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

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as image-based abuse, 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 report indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said 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 anticipate?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's someone being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

"Some believe it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she added.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual 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 changes that were necessary," she explained.

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

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social media 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 encoded within the copy of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you discover your image has been shared without your consent, as long as the service you posted it on has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use 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.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know that this is reliable 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 preventive measure to potential intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

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

"When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or service 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 support a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in her underwear were circulated within her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

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

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