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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is far from your standard tech founder. After multiple instances of clients leaking her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to take action" and looked to technology for a solution.

"Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to identify abusers, has won several awards and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This represents quite a departure from her background in offering BDSM services, dominating clients in the world of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

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

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said victims endured shame and stigma. "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 expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "The fact that those images could be then shared in my community or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's beyond, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's someone being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, 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 personal trainer or an financial advisor giving advice," she remarked.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the changes that were necessary," she stated.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social media and websites.

When an image is accessed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is unique to them.

This covert marker is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, as long as the platform you posted it on has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

To date, one service has adopted her tech and she's in talks with several more.

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology is already in use in the film industry, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology 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 expert from a support service commented she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse caused for victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or service who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based 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 just 15 when images of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

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

"However, it is illegal to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should always be where the responsibility is," she concluded.