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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is far from your standard tech founder. Following repeated instances of individuals leaking her intimate photographs, she was "sufficiently outraged to do something about it" and looked to technology for answers.

"These were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Little over a year after launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track abusers, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study recently.

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

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with offenders facing up to two years in prison.

It is far from an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A report indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

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

"I demand 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 then shared in my community or with people I love and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is empowered and strong, giving my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

"Some believe it's unusual but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she remarked.

She welcomes being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I know that it's bizarre, it's remarkable to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it took someone who has been through it to understand the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after many late nights, research and "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be implemented on any online platform where people share images, for instance dating 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 invisible watermark 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 without your consent, providing the service you used has the technology embedded, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"This technology is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're collaborating with a firm that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she added.

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

Changing the Narrative

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

"If that self-blame is compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional 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 response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in her underwear were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, too long for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the perpetrators. "There is no offence to consensually send an image to someone," said Jess.

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