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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your typical tech founder. Following multiple occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to technology for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

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

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

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, 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 uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse each year.

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

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be then shared where I live or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"Some believe it's unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an accountant giving advice," she added.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "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 required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she stated.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after many late nights, research and "bugging people" who know about 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 undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

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

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 data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

Currently, one service has adopted her tech and she's in talks 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," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating 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 test it at scale," she continued.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a support service said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on 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 self blame can really be deepened so it's really important that the response a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in her underwear were circulated within her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"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'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

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