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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your average tech founder. After multiple instances of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" 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 don't know," stated Madelaine.

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

This marks quite a departure from her background in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I demand dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed 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 an error on my part, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

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

"People think it's strange but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an financial advisor providing a service," she remarked.

She embraces being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I know that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, research and "consulting experts" who understand 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 networks 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 covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being edited and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been circulated without your consent, providing the platform you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"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 new system," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

She said she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a support service said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is compounded by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's really important that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated 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 a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents 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 shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the victims to the offenders. "There is no offence to willingly share an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"But it is a crime to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she affirmed.