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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is not at all your standard tech founder. After repeated instances of individuals leaking her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to take action" and looked to technology for answers.

"Those were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm embarrassed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I have never met," stated Madelaine.

Little over a year after founding her venture, 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 recently.

This represents quite a departure from her background in providing BDSM services, dominating clients in the realms of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a punishable crime with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

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

Madelaine, 37, explained survivors lived with feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I expect respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she continued. "The reality that those images could be then shared where I live 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 professional dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described.

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

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy 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 understand the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was managed to build her company after many late nights, investigation and "bugging people" who know about tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

Image Angel can be used by any digital service where people share images, for instance social connection apps, social media and websites.

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 copy of the image itself and can withstand screen shots, being edited and being re-captured with a different camera.

It means that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing the platform you posted it on has the system integrated, the viewer's details will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

Currently, one service has implemented her tech and she's in talks with many others.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"This technology is already in use in Hollywood, it is employed in live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a new system," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a firm that has 30 years experience in developing technology so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is deploy it widely," she continued.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a deterrent to would-be perpetrators.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service said she had seen directly the trauma and guilt intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a misinformed friend or professional who says 'what did you expect?' that self blame can really be reinforced so it's really important that the response somebody is provided with is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, adding: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to tackle this alone, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 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 shape her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, too long for someone to tell me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is passionate about eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an photo to someone," stated Jess.

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