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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies far from your standard tech founder. Following repeated occurrences of clients distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by someone who I don't know," said Madelaine.

Just over a year after launching her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track abusers, 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 background in providing BDSM services, dominating 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 far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A study indicates that around 1.42% of the women in the UK is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained survivors lived with feelings of humiliation. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you anticipate?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect consideration, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are negotiable," 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 my mistake, that's an individual committing abuse."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been practicing as a dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and consistently found her work empowering and fulfilling. "I am as a dominant woman, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving 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 accountant providing a service," she remarked.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "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 took someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the changes that needed to happen," she stated.

She insisted she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, research and "bugging people" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be implemented on any digital service where people share images, for instance dating apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is unique to them.

This covert marker is embedded into the copy of the image itself and can survive screenshots, being edited and being photographed with a secondary device.

It means that if you discover your image has been shared non-consensually, providing the service you posted it on 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 several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

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

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a firm that has 30 years experience in tech development so we are confident that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

She said she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential intimate image abusers.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

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 compounded by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be deepened so it's really important that the support a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she stated.

She noted it was fantastic that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to create solutions, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because a single solution is going to be able to solve this problem, not just support services, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when photographs of her in her underwear were circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth 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 shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to removing the stigma of this crime from the survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," said Jess.

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