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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is not at all your average startup entrepreneur. After multiple occurrences of individuals distributing her intimate photographs, she was "angry enough to do something about it" and looked to technology for answers.

"Those were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has won several awards and was cited as best practice in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, often referred to as image-based abuse, is a punishable crime with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the UK female population is impacted by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, explained victims endured shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I expect dignity, I expect consideration, and I expect confidence, and I don't see why those are negotiable," she added. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she described.

"Some believe it's strange but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an accountant providing a service," she remarked.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I know that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the modifications that needed to happen," she stated.

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

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is accessed by a user, it is automatically embedded with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

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

It ensures that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the platform you posted it on 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.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use in the film industry, it is employed in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

She said she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service said she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced 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 reinforced so it's really important that the response 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, adding: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards addressing technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, 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 local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured 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 tell me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

"But it is a crime to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the responsibility is," she concluded.