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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your typical startup entrepreneur. Following repeated occurrences of individuals leaking her private explicit images, she was "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to technology for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her venture, Image Angel, which employs invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as best practice in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks a significant shift from her background in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the world of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

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

"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community 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."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she described.

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

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, 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 been through it to understand the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after a lot of late nights, research and "bugging people" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance social connection 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 unique to them.

This invisible watermark is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated without your consent, as long as the service you used has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology already exists in Hollywood, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a new system," explained 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 solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

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

Changing the Narrative

An expert from a leading helpline said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse caused for victims.

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

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 tackling tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, 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 circulated within her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It took so long, too long for someone to say to 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 survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an image to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she concluded.