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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is far from your average tech founder. Following multiple occurrences of clients leaking her private explicit images, she was "angry enough to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

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

Just over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to identify abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

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

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with perpetrators 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 victims lived with 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 trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "The fact that those images could be then shared where I live or with people I love and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a treat to someone because I wish to," she said.

"People think it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an accountant providing a service," she added.

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 tech company, but it took someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

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

It means that if you discover your image has been shared without your consent, as long as the service you used 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.

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

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 new application and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm 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 expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

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

"When that guilt is compounded by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the response somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience 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 multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the victims 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 blame is," she affirmed.