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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas is far from your typical startup entrepreneur. Following multiple occurrences of individuals leaking her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to tech solutions for a solution.

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

Just over a year after founding her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was cited as best practice in an government-commissioned study earlier this year.

This marks quite a departure from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the realms of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, commonly known as image-based abuse, is a criminal offence with offenders risking two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that approximately 1.42% of the women in the UK is impacted by intimate image abuse on an annual basis.

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

"I demand respect, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she added. "The fact that those images could be subsequently distributed where I live or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's beyond, that's not my choice, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for a decade and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a gift to someone because I wish to," she said.

"Some believe it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a personal trainer or an financial advisor providing a service," she added.

She embraces being a unique figure in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, 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 understand the loopholes and the changes that needed to happen," she explained.

She insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless 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 social connection apps, social media and websites.

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 edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

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 sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be retrieved by a data recovery specialist so legal steps can follow.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system already exists in the film industry, it already exists 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 collaborating with a firm that has 30 years experience in tech development so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

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

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a leading helpline commented she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame this abuse caused for victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'what did you expect?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the support somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she stated.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is really important to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling tech facilitated gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to tackle this alone, no one helpline, it needs to be this multi-layered response."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess endured in her teens and 20s that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It required years, 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 offenders. "It isn't a crime to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

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