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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas represents not at all your average tech founder. After repeated occurrences of clients distributing her private explicit images, she felt "angry enough to take action" and looked to technology for a solution.

"These were beautiful pictures, I'm not ashamed of the pictures, I'm ashamed of the way that they were used against me by an individual who I have never met," explained Madelaine.

Just over a year since founding her company, Image Angel, which employs covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has garnered significant recognition and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

This represents a significant shift from her background in offering BDSM services, working with clients in the realms of kink and bondage.

The Pervasive Problem

The non-consensual sharing of private images, often referred to as revenge porn, is a criminal offence with perpetrators risking two years in prison.

It is far from an issue exclusively faced by those in the sex industry. A report suggests that around 1.42% of the UK female population is affected by this form of abuse on an annual basis.

Madelaine, thirty-seven, explained victims lived with feelings of humiliation. "I think a lot of people will comment, 'you put a private image out on the internet, what do you expect?'," she said.

"I expect respect, I expect respect, and I expect confidence, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she continued. "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 professional dominatrix, primarily online, for a decade and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "I am as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, giving my body as a gift to someone of my own volition," she said.

"People think it's strange but I view it similarly to a nutritionist or an accountant providing a service," she remarked.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the technology sector. "I understand that it's unconventional, it's crazy to think that an individual who was a dominatrix is now a creator of a tech company, but it required someone who has experienced it firsthand 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 many late nights, research and "consulting experts" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

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

When an image is viewed by a user, it is seamlessly tagged with an invisible forensic watermark which is specific to that viewer.

This covert marker is encoded within 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 find out your image has been shared without your consent, as long as the service you used has the system integrated, the sharer's information will be encoded in the image and can be extracted by a data recovery specialist so action can be taken.

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

Proven Technology, New Application

"The system is already in use in the film industry, it already exists in live television so this is not an untested concept, it's just a novel use and a different framework," said Madelaine.

"We have validated it, we're partnering with a firm that has decades of expertise in tech development so we know that this is solid and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she continued.

She expressed hope she believed the technology would also act as a deterrent 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 misinformed friend or service 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 response a victim receives is that they have not done anything wrong," she emphasized.

She noted it was inspiring that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, saying: "It is vital to have this comprehensive strategy towards tackling technology-enabled gender-based abuse, because no one tool is going to be able to solve this problem, no one helpline, it needs to be this integrated effort."

TV presenter Jess Davies was just 15 when images of her in a state of undress were shared around her town. It was the first of several incidents Jess endured in her youth that would later shape her advocacy work.

"It took so long, too long for someone to say to me, 'it wasn't your fault' and 'that shouldn't have happened'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the victims to the perpetrators. "It isn't a crime to willingly share an image to someone," stated Jess.

"However, it is illegal to distribute that non-consensually and I think that should invariably be where the blame is," she concluded.