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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your standard startup entrepreneur. After repeated occurrences of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to take action" and turned to technology for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

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

This represents a significant shift from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the world of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A study suggests that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, said survivors lived with shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she added. "The reality that those images could be then shared in my community or with people I love 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 professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she said.

"People think it's strange but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an financial advisor providing a service," she added.

She embraces being something of an anomaly 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 understand the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she stated.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after a lot of late 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 dating apps, social media and online sites.

When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the platform you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

To date, one service has implemented her tech and she's in discussions with many others.

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system already exists in the film industry, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a novel use and a new system," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a preventive measure to would-be perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a support service said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt this abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing technology-enabled 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 circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It required years, too long for someone to tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

"But it is a crime to distribute that without consent and I think that should always be where the blame is," she affirmed.