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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents far from your average startup entrepreneur. Following repeated instances of clients distributing her intimate photographs, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and looked to tech solutions for answers.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm embarrassed of the manner that they were used against me by someone who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year after launching her company, Image Angel, which uses invisible forensic watermarking to track abusers, has won several awards and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review recently.

This marks a significant shift from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, dominating clients in the world of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as image-based abuse, 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 adult entertainment sector. A report suggests 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 endured feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will say, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she noted.

"I expect dignity, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I don't see why those are up for debate," she continued. "The reality 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 someone being an abuser."

An Unconventional Path

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, primarily online, for 10 years and always found her work empowering and fulfilling. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she said.

"Some believe it's unusual but I don't see it any differently to a nutritionist or an financial advisor giving advice," she added.

She welcomes being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I know that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a founder of a tech company, but it required someone who has been through it to know the loopholes and the modifications that were necessary," she stated.

She maintained she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after a lot of 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 exchange photos, for instance social connection apps, social networks and online sites.

When an image is viewed by a viewer, it is automatically embedded 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 survive screen shots, being edited and being re-captured with a different camera.

It ensures that if you find out your image has been circulated non-consensually, providing 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 forensic expert so action can be taken.

Currently, one platform 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 live television so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a different framework," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're collaborating with a company that has 30 years experience in developing technology 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 hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure to potential intimate image abusers.

Changing the Narrative

An advocate from a support service said she had seen first-hand the panic, distress and self-blame intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"If that self-blame is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or professional who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that guilt can really be reinforced so it's really important that the support 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, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards addressing 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 integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were shared around her local community. It was the first of several incidents Jess experienced in her teens and 20s that would later inform her advocacy work.

"It required years, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," said Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of intimate image abuse from the victims to the offenders. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an image to someone," said Jess.

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