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Professional dominatrix Madelaine Thomas embodies not at all your typical startup entrepreneur. After repeated instances of individuals distributing her private explicit images, she felt "sufficiently outraged to take action" and turned to tech solutions for answers.

"These were striking images, I'm not ashamed of the photographs, I'm ashamed of the manner that they were weaponized by an individual who I don't know," stated Madelaine.

Just over a year since launching her venture, Image Angel, which uses covert digital tracking to track perpetrators, has won several awards and was recommended as exemplary procedure in an independent pornography review earlier this year.

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

A Widespread Issue

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

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

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

"I demand respect, I expect respect, and I expect trust, and I fail to understand why those are negotiable," she added. "The reality that those images could be subsequently distributed in my community or with my loved ones and employed to cause them pain, that's unacceptable, that's not my choice, that's not my mistake, that's an individual being an abuser."

A Unique Journey

Madelaine has been working as a professional dominatrix, mainly online, for 10 years and consistently found her work liberating and satisfying. "It's me as a woman in control, a woman who is confident and powerful, offering my body as a treat to someone of my own volition," she described.

"People think it's strange but I view it similarly to a personal trainer or an financial advisor providing a service," she remarked.

She embraces being something of an anomaly in the world of tech. "I understand that it's bizarre, 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 insisted she was not in the least bit techy and was managed to build her company after a lot of sleepless nights, investigation and "bugging people" who know about tech.

Understanding the Tech Solution

Image Angel can be used by any online platform where people exchange photos, for instance dating apps, social media 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 withstand screen shots, being altered and being photographed 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 viewer's details 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 discussions with several more.

An Established Method for a New Purpose

"The system is already in use in Hollywood, it already exists in sports broadcasting so this is not brand new technology, it's just a new application and a new system," explained Madelaine.

"And we've tested it, we're partnering with a company that has decades of expertise in developing technology so we know that this is reliable and what we now need to do is test it at scale," she added.

She expressed hope she hoped the technology would also act as a preventive measure 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 intimate image abuse inflicted on victims.

"When that guilt is reinforced by a uninformed acquaintance or service who says 'well, why did you take those images in the first place?' that self blame can really be deepened so it's crucial that the support somebody is provided with is that they have committed no error," she emphasized.

She added it was fantastic that Madelaine was using her experience to create solutions, adding: "It is vital to have this multi-layered approach towards tackling tech facilitated abuse, because no one tool 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 only fifteen when photographs of her in a state of undress were circulated within her town. It was the beginning of multiple violations Jess experienced in her youth that would later inform her women's rights campaigning.

"It took so long, an excessive amount of time for someone to say to me, 'you are not to blame' and 'that was wrong'," recalled Jess.

She too is dedicated to eliminating the shame of this crime from the survivors to the perpetrators. "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 concluded.