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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your typical tech founder. Following repeated instances of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to technology for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in offering BDSM services, dominating clients in the world of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

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

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, 37, said victims endured shame and stigma. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I demand respect, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The fact 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 my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

"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 something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that someone 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 modifications that needed to happen," she explained.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after many sleepless nights, investigation and "bugging people" who understand tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social media and online sites.

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

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

It ensures that if you discover your image has been shared non-consensually, as long as the service you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a forensic expert so action can be taken.

Currently, one platform has adopted her tech and she's in discussions with several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists in the film industry, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a new system," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a company that has 30 years experience in tech development 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 preventive measure to would-be intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

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

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt 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, adding: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing tech facilitated 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 integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced 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'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to consensually send 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 concluded.