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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your typical startup entrepreneur. Following multiple occurrences of individuals leaking her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for a solution.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year after launching her company, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in providing consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime 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 report suggests that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims endured feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will say, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "The reality that those images could be then shared in my community or with my loved ones and used to hurt them, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's someone committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years 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.

"People think it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an financial advisor giving advice," she added.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I know that it's unconventional, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand to know the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She insisted 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 online platform where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social networks and online sites.

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

This covert marker is encoded within the digital file of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being altered and being re-captured with a different camera.

It means that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the service you used has the technology embedded, the viewer's details will be hidden within the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology is already in use in the film industry, it is employed 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 collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development so we are confident that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

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

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An expert from a support service commented she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse caused for victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's really important that the response a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "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, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," said Jess.

"However, it is illegal to circulate that without consent and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she affirmed.