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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is not at all your typical tech founder. After multiple instances of clients leaking her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to technology for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Little over a year after launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify perpetrators, has won several awards and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an government-commissioned study recently.

This represents quite a departure from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the world of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, often referred to 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 adult entertainment sector. A report suggests that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said victims endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I demand dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be then shared 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 my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described.

"People think it's unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she remarked.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to understand the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after many sleepless nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social media and websites.

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

This covert marker is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being edited and being re-captured with a different camera.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the service you posted it on has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be encoded in 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 discussions with many others.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system already exists in the film industry, it is employed in sports broadcasting 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 partnering 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 hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a leading helpline commented she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a misinformed friend or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the support 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 really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling tech facilitated abuse, because a single solution 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 a state of undress were shared around her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, too long for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

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

"But it is a crime to distribute that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.