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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is not at all your typical startup entrepreneur. After multiple occurrences of clients 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 photographs, 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 since launching her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse each year.

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

"I demand respect, 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 then shared 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 committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a treat 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 financial advisor giving advice," she remarked.

She embraces being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I understand that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a technology firm, but it took someone who has been through it to understand the flaws and the changes that were necessary," she stated.

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

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social media and websites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered and being photographed with a different camera.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, 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 data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system already exists in Hollywood, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a leading helpline commented she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this 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 guilt can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to bring about change, saying: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because a single solution 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 just 15 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 took so long, too long for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

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

"However, it is illegal to circulate that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she concluded.