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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your typical tech founder. After multiple occurrences of clients leaking her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to identify abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This marks a significant shift from her background in providing consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

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

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

"I expect dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," 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 a decision I made, that's not my mistake, that's someone committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"Some believe it's unusual but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an financial advisor providing a service," she added.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

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

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social media and online sites.

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

This covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can withstand screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been shared without your consent, as long as the service you posted it on has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be hidden within the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology already exists in Hollywood, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a company that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a leading helpline said she had seen first-hand the trauma and guilt this abuse caused for victims.

"When that guilt is compounded by a misinformed friend or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing tech facilitated abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when images of her in her underwear were shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an image to someone," said Jess.

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