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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is not at all your standard tech founder. Following repeated occurrences of clients leaking her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to technology for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track abusers, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

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

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "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 dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"Some believe it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an accountant providing a service," she remarked.

She embraces being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I know 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 been through it to know the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she stated.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of late nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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

When an image is accessed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

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

It means that if you discover your image has been shared non-consensually, as long as the service you posted it on has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

Currently, one service has implemented her tech and she's in talks with many others.

Proven Technology, New Application

"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 different framework," said Madelaine.

"We have validated 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 added.

She expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service commented she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"When that guilt 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 deepened so it's really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing technology-enabled abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It took so long, 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 eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an image to someone," said Jess.

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