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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your typical startup entrepreneur. Following repeated instances of clients leaking her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to do something about it" and turned to tech solutions for a solution.

"These were striking images, I'm unapologetic of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," explained Madelaine.

Little over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track abusers, has won several awards and was cited as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This represents a significant shift from her previous career in offering consensual sexual encounters, working with clients in the realms of BDSM.

A Widespread Issue

Intimate image abuse, commonly known as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with perpetrators facing up to two years in prison.

It is not at all an issue uniquely experienced by those in the adult entertainment sector. A report indicates that approximately 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by intimate image abuse each year.

Madelaine, 37, said survivors lived with shame and stigma. "In my view a lot of people will comment, 'you shared a saucy picture out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are up for debate," she added. "The fact that those images could be then shared where I live or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not a decision I made, that's not an error on my part, that's an individual committing abuse."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently 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 described.

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

She welcomes being a unique figure in the world of tech. "I know that it's bizarre, it's crazy to think that someone who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a technology firm, but it required someone who has been through it to know the flaws and the modifications that were necessary," she explained.

She maintained she was not technically inclined and was able to build her company after a lot of late nights, investigation and "consulting experts" who understand tech.

How Does the Technology Work?

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

When an image is accessed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an undetectable digital marker which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker is encoded within the copy of the image itself and can survive screen shots, being altered and being re-captured with a secondary device.

It ensures that if you discover your image has been circulated non-consensually, as long as the service you posted it on has the technology embedded, the viewer's details 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 already exists in the film industry, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not an untested concept, it's just a new application and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a firm that has decades of expertise 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 believed the technology would also act as a deterrent to potential perpetrators.

Removing Stigma, Shifting Blame

An advocate from a support service commented she had seen directly the panic, distress and self-blame this 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 deepened so it's crucial that the support a victim receives is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She added it was inspiring that Madelaine was leveraging her ordeal to bring about change, saying: "It is really important to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling technology-enabled 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 a state of undress were circulated within her local community. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her advocacy work.

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

She too is passionate about removing the stigma of intimate image abuse from the survivors to the offenders. "There is no offence to consensually send an photo to someone," stated Jess.

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