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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your standard startup entrepreneur. Following repeated occurrences of clients distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" 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 someone who I have never met," said Madelaine.

Just over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, 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 background in offering BDSM services, dominating clients in the world of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors endured feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she noted.

"I expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, 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 my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, 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 working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she said.

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

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it took someone who has been through it to know the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many sleepless 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 social connection apps, social networks and websites.

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

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

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated 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 forensic expert so legal steps can follow.

Currently, one platform 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 is employed in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a leading helpline commented she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse caused for victims.

"When that guilt is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's really important that the support somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the victims to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to willingly share an image to someone," said Jess.

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